


Specialists in Improvisation

by Spectersticks



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Ad hoc the entire mission, Con Artistry, Escape, False Identity, Force Shenanigans, Gen, Humor, Infiltration, Missions Gone Wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:02:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 25,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23489515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spectersticks/pseuds/Spectersticks
Summary: Rumors of an underground trade organization depositing Separatist battle droids onto unsuspecting, neutral planets prompt the Jedi to investigate. But when a simple mission turns catastrophic, Obi-Wan, Anakin and Ahsoka will have to come up with creative solutions to escape the moon of Ubrikkia and find their way back to Coruscant.
Comments: 119
Kudos: 169





	1. Chapter 1

The instant he heard the first explosion, Obi-Wan knew that negotiations were over. He paused mid-sentence, having previously been occupying a group of Ubrikkian pirates (or “tradespersons,” as they preferred), and stole a glance up at the ramshackle tin ceiling along with everyone else. A second explosion boomed in the distance, followed by another, and another, and another after that—each one closer than the last. The lights inside flickered, and the roof overhead rattled like thunder. By now, the sand comprising the floor of the dimly lit hut was bathing the overcrowded room in a thick, dusty haze.

“You had better have an explanation for this, Jedi,” threatened the Bothan pirate leader in her deep, growling voice. She stood then, immediately soliciting the unanimous rise of her associates and their plentiful assortment of weaponry.

Obi-Wan lifted his arms in a feeble gesture of peace. “Now, now, there’s no need to-” A sixth explosion rocked the whole building. This time, the pirates were sent toppling over one another, misfired shots blazing holes in the roof, signaling Obi-Wan’s opportunity to make his impromptu escape. He waved his right arm—a perfectly normal motion for one struggling to maintain balance—and suddenly the pirate blocking the door was cast into the wall. If anyone suspected his use of the Force, they certainly hadn’t time enough to voice their accusation. He then vaulted forth to flee from the room. One foot out the door, Obi-Wan meant to break into a sprint, when he instead collided bodily with one heavy-set Gamorrean scout.

“Boss!” the porcine creature exclaimed from the doorframe, hardly noticing the Jedi he’d inadvertently sent reeling into the ground, “The droids are all gone! It’s the Jedi! The Jedi blew up the cargo freights! We’ve all been tricked, boss!”

The Bothan leader gripped a nearby crewman to steady herself, throwing him down in her rage. “You filthy _fen’rask!_ All of you! Kill the Jedi! I want his _head!”_ She swiped the blaster off her hip, and in that instant, the sand where Obi-Wan laid was a smoking patch of black.

Not one of the pirates saw him move. Exit blocked, Obi-Wan now flitted between the commotion of more than a dozen different heavily-armed races, all with the same intent to shoot him dead as swiftly as possible. They didn’t seem to worry much about friendly fire, he realized soon enough, for the room was quickly filling with the bodies of those he slipped around for cover. _Not good,_ he scolded himself, and jumped to take refuge behind one of the hut’s three main supports.

“There is nowhere for you to hide, dirty _liar!”_ he heard the Bothan yell, to which Obi-Wan readily agreed. Hiding in here was unproductive, at best.

Plans made, Obi-Wan engaged his lightsaber just long enough to slash the support providing him with cover. A wave of fear crashed over the Force just then, replacing the hostility and anger polluting the hut just prior. But the pirates’ fear transformed to confusion when their target retracted his weapon and leapt over their heads to the next support beam.

“Why are you stopping?! I said _kill him!”_

The subsequent hail of red bolts incinerated the beam with no problems at all. The crew paused in eagerness for the smoke to disperse, but once again, Obi-Wan had vanished from sight. They whirled this way and that in paranoia, only to finally locate him standing smugly beside the last beam.

It was too late when the leader grasped his intent. Her eyes grew wide as she opened her mouth, but her command was cut short. With the final support blasted to smithereens, the entire hut _cracked_ and promptly collapsed, pinning everyone down under its weight.

In a matter of minutes, the Ubrikkian pirates’ settlement was suffused in a cloud of displaced sand and smoke. It billowed out from the ruins of the hut, flowing into the greater currents of smog originating from the six demolished cargo freighters surrounding the camp. The poor visibility outside made for even poorer aim of the pirates on duty, who clambered around in a desperate search for the culprit responsible for destroying their precious shipments of Confederacy-issued battle droids.

Said culprit was racing by on foot, followed closely by one smaller culprit, when a shattered section of the hut’s fallen roof was levitated up and aside by the Jedi buried beneath it. Stilting himself upright, Obi-Wan sensed his conspirators streak past in a beeline for their ship.

Perhaps sensing Obi-Wan in turn, Ahsoka thought it prudent to speak up. “Master!” She shouted toward Anakin running alongside her, “What about Master Obi-Wan?!”

Anakin kept his eyes on the path ahead, mind occupied while keeping watch for enemy bolts flying their way. “Don’t worry, Snips, I’m pretty sure we made enough noise for him to figure out it’s time to go!”

And, true to his words, one overly sandy Obi-Wan appeared the next instant, running up from behind.

“I might be mistaken, but I _thought_ the mission was to _investigate_ the pirates for battle droids!”

Ahsoka jolted in surprise. Anakin, by contrast, responded as though his Master was there all along. “It was!” he shrugged on the run, “I’m saving time!”

“Saving _time?!”_ Obi-Wan reaffirmed, incredulous.

“Yeah! Now we won’t have to come back later when the Council wants us to destroy them! Better yet, _now_ we don’t have to wait ‘til they’re shooting at us!”

“I don’t expect the Council will agree that eliminating _one shipment of droids_ was worth garnering the ill will of an entire group of pirates, Anakin.”

“Oh what do _you_ know,” Anakin dismissed, igniting his saber against one particularly well-aimed sniper bolt.

“I am _on_ the Council, you do recall, yes?!” Obi-Wan mirrored his stance with weapon drawn. The retaliatory fire was getting denser by the second.

“I- think they’re onto us!” interrupted Ahsoka, additionally forced to join the defense.

The thinning dust in the air eventually revealed their position to the point where every pirate left in the camp could take aim without fail. Recognizing this, Obi-Wan scanned his surroundings for a safer place to strategize. “Quickly! Behind those tents!” he signaled with an overhead sweep of his arm, “We’ll have to find another route to the ship!”

The three slowed to a halt amid the impenetrable volley and inched backwards toward the formation of tents. Once concealed, they crouched together so tightly that the shared heat of their lightsabers could be felt in spite of the sweltering Ubrikkian summer.

“I think I remember a stack of shipping containers on our way into the camp,” Anakin suggested. “They’re farther away from where we are now, but they should be close enough to the ship that we can use them for cover, and then make a run for it once we set up a viable distraction.”

“Good thinking,” awarded Obi-Wan, “But first we’ll need a way to _get_ to them without drawing attention.”

“I’ll do it,” Ahsoka volunteered decisively. The other two Jedi turned to face her then, tacitly awaiting her proposal. “I’ll draw their fire away from the containers, and you guys get to the ship. Then use the guns to lay down some cover fire, open the hatch, and I’ll hop on board.”

The amount of personal risk detailed in her plan caused immediate rejection in both Masters’ minds. They each began to tell her as much, when a furious, impossibly loud declaration in Bothese overtook the whole camp. Simultaneously, all color drained from Anakin and Obi-Wan’s faces.

“Oh no,” dreaded Obi-Wan.

“Oh no,” Anakin agreed.

Ahsoka raised a curious brow. “What? What’d she-”

The telltale sound of a proton cannon shocked through the settlement. Then, after the briefest of pauses, was answered by the similarly telltale sound of a Republic cruiser erupting on impact.

“…Oh,” was all that Ahsoka could think of to say, as fragments of ship precipitated all around them.


	2. Chapter 2

“Well, guess we don’t have to worry about finding a way to the ship anymore,” Anakin joked with a grin.

Hard as he tried, Obi-Wan failed to conceal an exasperated smile of his own.

Thus it was only Ahsoka left taking the predicament as seriously as it warranted. “What are we gonna do _now?!”_ she grieved, “The rest of this moon’s uninhabited! Without a ship, we’re trapped here with a bunch of pirates trying to kill us!”

Anakin thought on this. “Hm. I don’t suppose you can go apologize for us, can you Master? Or do they still think we’re here to buy spice?”

“No, no, I’m fairly sure that agreement ended when we started blowing up their possessions,” Obi-Wan said with a facetious tone. Antics aside, he motioned back toward the main body of the camp with a flick of his head. “I suppose we’ll just have to borrow one of theirs. On my mark, we run. Ready?”

“Uh- No, wait!” Anakin stopped him from dashing off with a hand gripping his shoulder. “Actually…” he trailed off sheepishly, “Well, see, Ahsoka and I kind of… _Well_ we destroyed all the ships.”

Obi-Wan paused in silent bewilderment. Ahsoka put on her very best ‘hapless Padawan’ expression, while Anakin smartly removed his hand. Undoubtedly the three of them would have started some or other argument then, but instead, they were succinctly spurred into action by a voluminous wave of fire that suddenly washed through the tents from a second cannon bolt.

The loose earth convulsed beneath their fast-falling footsteps, dry linen tents bursting into flame all around. Fanning the smoke away from her face, Ahsoka caught sight of the place which had unintentionally become their target destination. “Hey, there’s a junkyard up ahead!” she reported with hope, although, looking back, she found her words were lost somewhere between the rain of blaster fire being deflected by her Masters, and the belligerent shouting match they were waging against each other at the same time. She rolled her eyes and kept moving.

“-And _you_ were the one who said that the reinforced E-fifty corvette would make us look suspicious!”

“Because it _would!”_

At this point, the topic of argument had flown so far beyond its initial context that neither combatant realized they’d arrived at the waypoint. Mountain ranges of scrap rolled over the sand here in great, misshapen heaps, along with a vile stench that was exacerbated by the seasonal heat. Taking advantage of their inattention, Ahsoka lured Anakin and Obi-Wan to safety by leading them all behind a short, makeshift hovel that was perhaps once part of speeder sled. While they continued to rail on each other in highly inventive ways, Ahsoka assumed leadership of the mission by searching the field for a workable ship.

“There!” she exclaimed at last, temporarily breaking whichever mysterious spell it was that caused her Masters to bicker whenever they were left in the same space for more than five minutes. When they looked up, they found her not very far off, crouched under a desk and extending her arm toward the visible end of a lopsided cargo ship across the way. About half the hull was buried under a landslide of junk, while the other half was covered in rust so comprehensively that the metal’s original color was anyone’s guess.

“Oh hey!” Anakin remarked. “At least _she_ knows how to pick a ship. Come on, let’s go.” He then scurried over, though Obi-Wan folded his arms and stubbornly refused to move.

 _“That_ old thing?” he continued to feud, “You can’t be serious. We need to get _off_ this planet—not turn into a fireball once we reach the upper atmosphere!”

Crouching now under the desk with his Padawan, Anakin goaded him from afar. “Don’t listen to him, Snips, he’s a cranky old man. It’s the inside that counts!”

A pair of red bolts twanged off the desk in response, shedding sparks every which way and taking with them a sizeable chunk off the top.

“I think they heard you!” Ahsoka warned. The underside of the desk was too cramped for her to mount a proper defense without endangering them both, and so she readied her hilt, poising to leap at the first sign of pirates.

Unexpectedly, Obi-Wan stood instead—albeit with a dramatic sigh. “If you _must_ go through with this, then go do it quickly. I’ll hold them off.” His permission was punctuated by the sound of his lightsaber, flaring to life as he stepped out from the shade and into the enemies’ line of sight.

“Wait!” Ahsoka tried to appeal, but Anakin accepted the plan before she could interject. He nodded once, then slipped out from the desk, keeping low to the ground, making his way to the broken-down ship in search of an entrance. Her instincts told her to keep pace—at the very same time, they told her to stay back for support. Swiveling her head indecisively between either Master, she was ultimately coerced to Anakin’s side upon witnessing an avalanche of scrap metal fall into place as a barrier under Obi-Wan’s command. To a master of the Force, this rancid junkyard was surely a treasure trove of ammunition.

The interior of the half-buried cargo ship was successfully breached via the uncooperative waste disposal hatch, given that every other potential entrance was either entombed in trash or long-since short circuited. Anakin crawled through the duct with his nose shoved deep in his arm. The smell of the junkyard was positively delectable in comparison to this place. Ahsoka emerged similarly, hands glued to her mouth at the exact moment she no longer needed them to hoist herself in.

“What in the _world_ -” she broke off to clear her constricted throat, “-is inside this _ship?”_

“Hopefully a functional engine, at least,” Anakin replied practically, keeping a limit on the air he needed to inhale.

The main cabin of the ship was approximately the same size as the flight control bridge on a destroyer, except, whereas the bridge of a star destroyer was definitively the _bridge_ , the main cabin of this cargo ship contained every single facility one might expect from a mobile living quarters, all crammed in one place. As such, the cockpit was undivided from the rest of the floor, which could be described by a single hallway and the four rooms it branched into: a compacted bunk room, a disproportionately large cargo hold, a small refresher, and what Anakin identified as a modified droid storage unit that had once served to house a (missing) escape pod.

The entrance into the engine bay was a low, vent-like hatch built into the wall under the cockpit where the co-pilot’s feet might rest. Ahsoka stayed up top to locate an emergency power breaker, and Anakin dropped down this hatch into a dark swamp of cables and pistons with only the glow of his lightsaber to guide him.

Outside, a swarm of disorganized, angry, and _very_ confused pirates battled against a lone conductor of chaos. Huge agglomerations of scrap metal slung down from the skies, crashing into serial floods of shrapnel which themselves became animated to chase their opponents. The cleverer pirates elected to take shelter from Obi-Wan’s deadly storm, though he ensured that their safety didn’t last long. He peeled roofs off of flimsy tin sheds and stripped the outer hulls from deteriorating speeders. Any piece of equipment deemed large enough to use as shelter was efficiently destroyed, spreading fear across the battlefield regarding which piece of garbage would attempt to murder them next. In truth, however, very few pirates sustained major injury. Obi-Wan’s goal was not to cause harm, but simply to sow chaos, thereby discouraging any consequential retaliation. Pirates weren’t droids. Pirates felt fear, and as a result, their attack had been utterly stopped.

Such was the scene when a monstrous _roar_ cascaded over the settlement, emanating from the ancient, encaged beast that was the scrapped cargo ship. Obi-Wan flinched at the incredible volume, standing near to it as he was, causing the majority of his telekinetically flying scrap metal minions to nosedive at once. He narrowly managed to regain his grasp on a refrigeration unit before it squashed a fleeing Rodian.

Slowly, everyone in the junkyard became eerily still. The amassment of pirates watched on in stupor as the patently _brown_ -colored cargo ship rose from its grave, loosing metric tons of trash from its once-buried hull, coughing out surges of flame as it dislodged any material wedged into its bottom thrusters. All else was quiet. Obi-Wan couldn't believe it: only Anakin could revive a ship that was this long dead. And then, an idea dawned upon him. Taking a moment to gauge the flux of terror and trepidation in the Force, he lifted one hand—and stretched that arm toward the ship.

Instant, overwhelming victory.

The pirate gang fled in mass desperation, screaming as one in fear of the godlike being before them who could lift entire spacecrafts with a wave of his hand.


	3. Chapter 3

Ahsoka startled every time the engines skipped—which was more than ten times each minute and always induced an acute feeling of doom. She twisted and strained in the co-pilot’s seat while struggling to keep the ship mostly upright as it ascended at a glacial pace. To her left wrestled Anakin in a comparable state, darting from switchboard to switchboard, placating a salvo of alarms all warning him in different ways that this ship was in _no_ way put together well enough to fly.

“Maybe- _urk!”_ Ahsoka grunted with the controls flung far to her right, “-this wasn’t-!” she then flung them left, “-such a-!” and right again. “-good idea after all!”

“Shut up! I’m trying to concentrate!” Using the Force, Anakin yanked off the rust-welded cover from the emergency override keypad. The small set of keys underneath were perhaps just as stiff, but with a little extra anger and a lot of urgency behind his keystrokes, the intended effect was achieved: a forced shutdown of the stabilizers’ automatic calibration. The ship seemed to wobble a bit less at first, to his credit, until the main issue changed from annoying to dangerous.

The ship careened back. Outside Ahsoka’s control, both pilots were tilted back in their seats as the ship decided that a backwards-leaning, relaxed posture was the best shape to take. It stopped only centimeters away from lying flat on the ground. This would have been merely inconvenient, rather than problematic, had the ship simply stopped there. But by now the bottom thrusters that were previously lifting the ship from the ground were stuck at an angle, which propelled the ship in a reverse path over the sand—a path heading straight for Obi-Wan outside.

With the external sensors disabled, however, neither Anakin nor Ahsoka could perceive the danger their craft was posing.

“Push it _forward_ , Ahsoka!”

“I _am_ pushing it forward!”

Both of their comm links blinked green. Spotting them, Anakin huffed in frustration. _“Great_. Prepare for the ‘I told you so’ of a lifetime,” he warned, then accepted the call by punching the unit on his wrist into the cushion of his fraying pilot’s chair. “We’re working on it, okay?!”

But Obi-Wan was in no mood to retort. He was much more concerned with the house-sized hunk of rust sailing full tilt his way. At breakneck speed, he dashed through the scrap metal sea he’d regrettably made for himself, scanning the route ahead for anything he could use as a springboard to lengthen the time before he was flattened by his Padawans’ ship. “Well, hurry it up!” he complained, vaulting over top of a defunct transporter droid. “You’ll herd me into the pirate camp if you don’t squash me to pieces, first!”

It took a while for Anakin and Ahsoka to make sense of his situation, but as soon as they did, they turned to each other in renewed, mutual distress over the circumstance they’d created.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Ahsoka sputtered, now flipping through numerous alternative flight modes in an expedited attempt to discover one that worked.

Meanwhile, the growing sound of blaster fire outside signaled that they’d rejoined the pirates who followed them into the junkyard. In reality, however, they were not only rejoined, but vastly outpacing them. The frenzied stampede of pirates was terrified at first of their Jedi assailant, on fast pursuit with his cargo-ship-hammer in tow, though it quickly became evident that he was _not_ in pursuit; he was as much a victim as they were. The unusual sideways ship was indiscriminate of the prey it mowed down. After catapulting himself over the junkyard’s wire net barrier, Obi-Wan scrambled ungracefully back to a Force-assisted sprint, bounding past multiple pirates he’d been so careful to spare. Those poor individuals had little time to react before they were met with the gruesome fate that Obi-Wan was fighting hard to avoid.

Anakin threw down the faulty modulator he had in his hand, contorting awkwardly to reenter the engine bay.

“Oh my gosh-” Ahsoka gasped in the same moment, “You heard that, right?! We totally just ran someone over! _Master!”_

“I know!” he yelled back. The hatch to the engine bay swung open by the assistance of his boot. “The stupid controls are useless. I’m going to cut the bottom thrusters and manually route power to the rear stabilizer.”

“No! I mean- I think we hit _Obi-Wan!”_

Unconvinced by her magnified panic, Anakin tapped his wrist comm before worming the rest of himself into the ship’s lower level. “Hey,” he said firmly into the device, “Still alive out there?”

“ _Somehow,”_ Obi-Wan’s indignant voice reassured them, “Although I can’t very well say the same for a number of pirates your ludicrous piloting has-”

Anakin ended the call. “He’s fine,” was the bland summary he reported, before disappearing into the hatch.

“Anakin!” Obi-Wan chided a final time before resentfully accepting the fact he’d been disconnected. Not far ahead, he saw the fluttering flames of the tents swallowing up most of the establishment. He certainly held no amount of eagerness to run headlong into _that_ inferno, but even _less_ he wanted to exchange greetings with the proton cannon, which he lamented to discover was already charged and aimed to blast away the rampaging ship. “Oh, bother,” he commented. Then, shunting the Force to a single point underneath him, Obi-Wan launched forward at a speed greater than twice that of the ship. He shot like a rocket across the sand, landing haphazardly in a hot nest of flame, giving him _just_ the time and distance required for him to then sling his arms back toward the incoming ship. The cannon fired. Its immense red beam ripped through the desert air on route for collision. And though the aim was perfectly centered, the ship suddenly _lurched_ up and off to one side, evading the shot with not a second to spare. The beam thus erupted in a great cloud of sand at the same time the ship bounced down with an earsplitting _crunch_.

Ahsoka was nowhere near her co-pilot’s seat anymore. Correspondingly, Anakin found himself on the opposite side of the engine bay now. They each groaned in acute pain as they bent themselves back to semi-normal shapes and palmed around for something to stand on. Pleasantly, that ‘something’ was the floor once again. It appeared that the enormous _whack_ the ship took to the ground was sufficient to remind the stabilizers to activate. And once activated, the gravity sensors came online as well, beginning immediately to correct the ship’s angle. Anakin was proud to attribute the success to Ahsoka, while she attributed the success to him. Hardly could either of them guess that the true praise was due to the ground, the pirate in charge of the cannon, and the Jedi outside who now stood on top of the fast-rising ship.

Banging the engine bay hatch open, Anakin peered out at Ahsoka’s unsteady feet as she wobbled back to her chair. “Doing okay up there?” he probed while stemming the blood from a cut on his head.

Still foggy, Ahsoka sat with a _plop_. “Ugh… Yeah, I’ll make it.”

“Great work,” he congratulated her next, “Now that we’re stable, we just have to pick up Obi-Wan and make a break for the stratosphere.” It was marginally more difficult, Anakin found, to squeeze in and out of the engine bay covered in fresh bruises.

“Come in, Obi-Wan,” Ahsoka mumbled into her comm. Only once he’d found a suitable handhold on the exterior hull did he give a response.

“I’m still here,” he prodded her, “though not by any assistance of you two and your piloting skills.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny,” she snapped back at him. And then more seriously, “I’ll fly us back down. We can open the gate for you when we’re close. Think you can make it?”

“No need,” he replied, and gave a polite knock to the ship’s main entrance gate, which reverberated throughout the interior.

Anakin chuckled at that, still holding his head in one hand, turning to find the gate’s release button.

“How did you-?!” Ahsoka startled, stealing a quizzical glance at the altimeter, “We’re almost fifty meters above ground level!”

It was Anakin who answered her then, in the form of a not-so-reassuring, “Uh-oh.”

The gate was nonfunctional.

“Master. Go to the bottom of the ship and locate the disposal hatch,” Anakin ordered, taking a seat at the pilot’s position and starting a full scan of the exits.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The main gate is broken. Ahsoka and I got in through the waste disposal hatch, so we know at least _that_ one is working. I can open it remotely when you get there.”

Obi-Wan slumped against the high-altitude winds. “This day just keeps getting better.”


	4. Chapter 4

The clanking sounds of Obi-Wan’s ascent through the waste disposal chute were accompanied by his discontented grumbling, all of which Anakin and Ahsoka could hear from the cockpit up front. Still, they were more than occupied adjusting various aspects of their precarious flight, and so neither gave him much regard as he crawled out from the chute and into the main cabin of the ship.

“Good _heavens,_ what manner of fetid creature died in here?” he criticized while brushing the sand from his robes.

Anakin took that as his signal to shut the disposal hatch. “Strap in, Master, we’re closing in on the ozone. Things are about to get rocky.”

Aside from there being nowhere _to_ , in fact, strap in, Obi-Wan ignored his command and walked over to the cockpit area. “Are you sure this ship will even _make_ it past the ozone?” he asked, holding the back of his Padawan’s chair.

“It’s only a moon,” Anakin reminded him.

“Yes, but if it’s large enough to sustain multiple atmospheric layers, then there’s still a chance the transition between those layers could-”

“I can _handle_ it. I didn’t grow up flying thermo-regulated ships, you know. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: so long as the engine is pressurized, you can do everything else manually.”

Obi-Wan pointed a skeptical finger. “Now, you see _that_ line of thinking is precisely the sort that leads to us hurtling down in flames.”

Anakin glanced up at him to meet the challenge. “Come on. How many times has that actually happened?”

“So many I’ve lost count!”

“Okay, but how many times have we died?”

_“Anakin.”  
_

“I’m just saying!”

No sooner than the debate ended, the ship crashed through the thin ozone layer. The reactive composition here, coupled with the rapidly decreasing atmospheric pressure, caused the thrusters to skip in and out while failing to acclimatize. Ahsoka redoubled her grip on the controls. It was her job to keep the flight steady without straining the stabilizers so harshly as to rip them right off. Accordingly, Anakin modulated the fuel intake to avoid buildup while the thrusters weren’t able to burn it all off. If the thrusters cut out for more than a few seconds, they could wind up exploding the next time they tried to ignite. Of course, a normal craft would have been equipped to handle such problems automatically. Anakin tried not to think about how much simpler this flight would be had he decided to bring along his astromech today. To make matters worse, the whole ship shuttered as one large and menacing cannon bolt sang past the front viewport.

 _“Really?!”_ Ahsoka moaned.

Alarmed, Obi-Wan examined the console from his place behind Anakin’s chair. “If this ship belonged to pirates, it likely has guns. I’ll deter them long enough to-”

“Bad idea,” interrupted Anakin. “The guns are on the same fuel cell as the engine. We only have enough fuel to-” he took a quick measurement of the meter, “-Uh, well, just don’t try the guns.”

“Very well then, how do _you_ suggest we proceed?”

“I _suggest_ you leave me alone for a minute so I can focus on making it so we don’t blow _ourselves_ out of the sky!”

Obi-Wan took the hint. Impatiently he turned around to survey the rest of the cabin, disliking the feeling of idleness in the midst of a crisis. Was there an escape pod he could prepare? _No, Anakin would’ve taken care of that_. How about a deflector shield he could man? _That would be connected to the same fuel cell as the guns._ Sensing—and empathizing with—his unease, Anakin donated a small part of his occupied mental capacity toward brainstorming as well.

“Hey,” he called back, eliciting his Master’s attention, “Think this ship has any cargo left?”

Spending a moment to comprehend the meaning behind his question, Obi-Wan grinned and made for the cargo hold. “Ahsoka,” he requested as he went, “Line us up over top of the camp.”

Her face scrunched in confusion. “Wait. Won’t that put us in front of the proton cannon?”

“Don’t worry,” Anakin dismissed, “That’s the point.”

The door to the cargo hold was rusted in place, Obi-Wan found, though the indicator light above it seemed to believe otherwise. It opened approximately three centimeters before stopping on its own accord. Time wasting, he squeezed his fingers in through the gap and shoved it aside just far enough to sidle the rest of the way through. The inside of the cargo hold was spacious as it was filthy. Fragments of droids and long-since raided shipment containers were strewn across the floor, in some cases embedded in sand dunes that had formed there over years. A number of shade-dwelling desert plants had also taken residence here, and at the very back towered the broad loading gate. Inoperable, as was to be expected, but by Obi-Wan’s vision that was less important.

“Ready to fire, Anakin, just give me the word.” Dropping his wrist, he braced himself against a shelving unit built into the wall. The powerful sizzling sound of a second cannon bolt echoed in from outside.

Anakin looked to Ahsoka. “You heard him; up the pitch and hold us steady.”

“If you say so,” she shrugged, still not following the strategic wavelength her Masters apparently shared. She pulled the flight controls back, angling the ship upward as it took position directly above the pirate camp. Consequently, every last piece of debris sitting in the cargo hold slid across the floor and collided noisily against the loading gate.

Hearing this from the other end of the ship, Anakin comm’d back. “Locked and loaded, Master. Fire at will.”

The metal of the loading gate buckled and crunched. Weakened already by years of decay, it crumpled like paper through the will of the Force from Obi-Wan’s hand. The weight of the refuse lying against it did the rest of the work: unable to withstand the strain any longer, the loading gate burst from its hinges and was jettisoned to the moon’s surface below. And without anything left to keep them, the remaining contents of the hold were flushed out in turn. All in all, a multifarious arrangement of sand, plants and scrap plunged down at terminal velocity on route to decimate the camp like an incoming meteor shower.

There was no more resistance from the pirates after that. Peering down at the moon’s surface from high up in the stratosphere, Obi-Wan could only hope they’d abandon their settlement in time.

Favorably though, the great loss in weight from the ship just then removed much of the burden of scaling the atmospheres. The thrusters became less erratic, the fuel expenditure was lessened, and there was one fewer room to keep pressurized and supplied with breathable air—something Obi-Wan was quick to perceive. He wedged his way back through the partially ajar door and wrenched it shut until he heard the airlock snap it in place. They’d breached the mesosphere at last. With the moon’s abbreviated layers, they were practically home free.

—That is, if they had the fuel to _make_ it back to Coruscant. Halfway into the mesosphere, the thrusters started to whine and the ship slowed involuntarily.

“Oh, what _now,”_ Ahsoka sighed as Obi-Wan came up behind her.

“Power down everything except the thrusters,” Anakin advised, already beginning the task himself.

“Even the oxygen cyclers?” she asked, hand resting doubtfully over the switch that controlled their rancid, yet breathable air.

“Everything. We can make it for a little while with the air that’s already in the cabin.”

“And then you’ll divert the remaining power to send out a homing beacon, once we’re in space?” appended Obi-Wan, cutting the lights from a breaker attached to the wall.

“That’s the plan,” Anakin confirmed.

Diverting full power to the engine put the three in a dark, cold, zero-gravity box for a solid ten minutes. Like the temperature, the pressure inside was dropping all the while. It brought with it a slow, painful feeling of nausea that seemed to compress every inch of their bodies. Anakin, floating somewhere near the upper end of the viewport, rubbed at his sinuses. The cut on his head had stopped bleeding for now, though it felt like he’d sustained a crack in his skull. Ahsoka felt the past hour’s injuries amplify, too. She hadn’t really noticed _where_ she fell when she was tossed from her chair. But she certainly knew now, for her right shoulder joint was almost so stiff to the point of immobility. Obi-Wan, on the other hand, attempted to meditate. He took a seat on the floor when there wasn’t a chore left to do, preparing himself for the upcoming period of discomfort. However, he found it was significantly harder to meditate while the ceiling was incessantly prodding his rear.

When the time came that Anakin could no longer defy the broiling pain in his head threatening to swallow his consciousness, he swam forth and yanked the acceleration down to zero. The thrusters stopped. They all waited in trepidation. If the thrusters were cut prematurely, they would be overcome by the moon’s gravity and fall back to the surface. Half a minute they waited for any inkling of falling. Yet, for half a minute they still floated freely. Serene, but for the icy chill, dwindling oxygen and critically low pressure.

“We’re in the clear,” Anakin wanted to say. He decided not to when the pain from moving his jaw sent a shiver down his spine. The pressure system was _definitely_ the first in line to be put back in service.


	5. Chapter 5

Gravity simulators were around fifty percent when the ship’s life support systems came back online. To everyone’s immediate relief, the cabin was rapidly re-pressurized. The temperature was steadily climbing, lights were back on, and a freshly recycled supply of oxygen was flowing in through the ducts. All that remained was to decipher the ship’s communications capacity and use it to send out a distress signal to the nearest Republic-allied society.

While Anakin explored the console, Ahsoka took a moment to rub some warmth back into her bare arms.

“When did _this_ happen?” Anakin flinched away from Obi-Wan’s fingers as they brushed aside the sticky, blood-soaked hair from the gash on his head.

“Stop!” he whined instinctually, buying himself enough time to resume his work, “Leave it alone. I’m fine.”

“I’m sure you are, considering your attitude hasn’t improved.” Obi-Wan left him then to amble about the cabin space, casually inspecting the walls and pulling the shelves in search of a medical kit. “But you must keep in mind that we cannot be certain when our rescue will arrive. It’s best not to leave these things unattended for long.”

Anakin stopped completely. He swung over to meet Ahsoka with the most annoyed, most disbelieving face he could muster, only to find she’d beaten him to the punch. Together they shared a fleeting moment of solidarity over their Master’s flagrant hypocrisy. However, they also knew that nothing they could do or say would convince him of this, and with this mutual understanding, they each returned to their own affairs without speaking a word. Only once Obi-Wan had completed his search of the main area and departed into the bunk room did their resentment taper to a safe and tolerable degree.

“…Well, there goes my meeting with Master Plo, I guess,” Ahsoka said, intentionally posing an unrelated topic to deter them from slandering Obi-Wan behind his back.

Anakin was grateful for her attempt. “Oh. You were meeting with Master Plo today?”

“He was going to show me how to add information to the Archives. I was telling him about the people we found on Velmor and how they weren’t registered as a sentient race yet.”

“Those… Little guys? With the horns?” Anakin recalled after a pause, struggling to remember the mission she spoke of. “I could’ve showed you how to do that.”

A touch of irritation colored the Force. “You _could,”_ Ahsoka began, “except that you _always_ seem to find something better to do whenever I want to go to the Archives.”

“What? That’s not true.” Finally locating the correct panel, he flicked on the long distance comm beacon. Predictably, the console gave no indication that anything changed.

“It _is_ true!” she argued back. “You never-! _Ugh._ You know what? Nevermind. It’s not worth getting into.” The swivel joint in her chair squeaked loudly as she spun in a slow, exasperated circle. With the ship drifting in space freely, there was nothing left to occupy her hands.

A niggling guilt prompted Anakin to appease her. “I’ll make time for it. Okay? Next time. When we get back to the Temple before our next mission, I’ll-” he grunted, ripping the beacon’s console-interface module from the wall, “-Show you how to edit the Archives.”

The cabin then shook all of a sudden with the sound of a sick, juicy _thud_ from the bunk room in back. It was followed promptly by an indistinct retching and Obi-Wan’s strained voice:

“I believe I’ve—dear _Force!_ —I’ve discovered the source of the smell!”

Seconds later found him edging backwards out from the bunks, holding his breath, dragging one partially decomposed corpse of what was perhaps an Aqualish male. It didn’t seem possible, but the stink in the air managed to intensify with its source finally exposed.

“Oh, _gross!”_ Ahsoka gasped, reeling back in horror with an arm over most of her face.

Anakin coughed as his lungs constricted reflexively. _“What_ is- Get that _out_ of here!” He abandoned the heavy module unceremoniously on the floor, prioritizing the fastest way to access the disposal chute. Obi-Wan already had the unfortunate space farer hovering at the hatch when Anakin punched the button to open it. Tossing the body in one fluid maneuver of teamwork, all three of them were more than pleased to watch it from the viewport as it grew smaller and smaller into the unending vastness of space.

“Pity,” Obi-Wan said while stripping off his gloves, “I’ll have to burn these when I find the time.”

“I’m guessing that was the pilot,” conjectured Ahsoka. “He must’ve been dead for _years!”_

Anakin sat on the ground cross-legged, eager to deconstruct the beacon interface and thereby stop thinking about the smell of rotting flesh that refused to quit assaulting them. “More like a month,” he corrected her absently, “Bodies in the desert dry out _way_ too fast to be _that_ fragrant after a year.”

“I’m not so sure,” disputed Obi-Wan, contrary as ever, “I found him squirreled away inside the overhead storage. I’m sure he’s remained quite hydrated in there for some time.”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t bloated. He was sticky. So that means there’s been some water loss, which means-”

“Can we _not_ talk about this?!” Ahsoka burst in. She was markedly less interested than either of them in reliving the nauseating details of their most recent manifestation of bad luck.

“Fair enough,” Obi-Wan obliged, now gesturing amiably toward the beacon interface in front of Anakin. “More importantly, how is our rescue coming along?”

“Patience, Master,” Anakin scolded mockingly, “I have to see what the problem _is_ before I can fix it.”

Prying off the last clip from the chassis enclosing the module interior, he was then able to lift open the chassis and stare in perplexity at the utter lack of machinery inside. A few frayed, wiry connectors remained, meant to attach the interface buttons to some apparatus inside, but said apparatus was gone, leaving the whole module as little more than an overly complex, hollow metal cube. Ahsoka leaned in cautiously over his shoulder.

“Uh… Something tells me things just got a lot worse.”

Anakin sighed a long, deflating sigh. “The beacon’s signal transmitter was stolen. Without a homing beacon, we’re dead in the water.” He tapped the box in finality.

“That’s encouraging,” Obi-Wan quipped.

Aside from being a politically minor planet itself, Ubrikkia was nowhere near galactic trade routes or hyperspace lanes. It was essentially isolated in virtue of its uninhabitable environment. Those who visited Ubrikkia or its moons were transient, bringing their own supplies and venturing out again when provisions were low. Knowing this, the probability of someone accidentally happening upon a rundown cargo ship drifting nearby was close to none.

“I can get us a short-range signal using the transmitter from our comm links.” Anakin offered. He pulled the oblong device from his wrist and started peeling apart the thin casing.

“And how short is ‘short’?” queried Obi-Wan in turn.

“I don’t know, it depends on what we have here that I can use to amplify the signal. Maybe half a parsec? Don’t quote me on that.”

“Half a _parsec?”_ echoed Ahsoka, obviously disappointed. “Like _that’ll_ help.”

“Well, I’m open for _suggestions_ if _you two_ can think of anything better.”

As it turned out, neither Obi-Wan nor Ahsoka had a workable alternative on hand, and so the day that started off so full of excitement now passed in quiet monotony.


	6. Chapter 6

The rhythmic creaking of the ship’s outer hull had become strangely calming after nearly eight hours of hearing it, Ahsoka thought. She lounged peacefully inside the bedsheet hammock she’d engineered into the main cabin’s ceiling, unwilling to stay in the bunk room where the Aqualish pilot had been festering for an indeterminate amount of time. The half-eaten ration bar she’d been snacking on was now serving as entertainment, rather than nourishment, as it levitated in whimsical patterns above her open palm. Of course, such games weren’t nearly as amusing to a battle-tested Jedi Padawan as they were to a youngling, so she let the bar drop into her grip and rolled to her side. Anakin hadn’t done anything more exciting than the rest of them in the past hours, but Ahsoka wagered he would still be more enjoyable to watch than a piece of floating food.

A few meters away and below her, he sat surrounded by bits of machine that were salvaged from the (unfortunately many) dysfunctional parts of the ship. The homemade beacon was finished a while ago. It did its job to broadcast the SOS signal at the approximate range Anakin promised, but without the specialized tools and components required for a long-distance version, he was left with little else to contribute. He therefore busied himself with the fine art of scrap sorting, hoping another idea would come while he sifted through age-old electronics. Ahsoka whittled away the next half hour by challenging herself to guess the type of contraption he was stringing together next.

After all, it was wholly unappealing for her to go bother Obi-Wan, for right at the get-go he enlisted himself as the organic accompaniment to Anakin’s homing device. He’d been holed up meditating inside the droid storage room since bidding the others goodnight seven hours ago. All three of them remained decently confident that the Council would send _some_ form of search party to Ubrikkia within the next Standard day or two, but given the distance they’d already drifted off-moon, it was improbable they’d be successfully traced before the dregs of their fuel cell ran out. No fuel meant no life support. That was where Obi-Wan came in—or at least, so he said. Buried deep in the tides of the Force, he projected his mind into the reaches of the universe outside, hypervigilant for any living being who might stray their way. Whether his range exceeded or fell short of the homing beacon was left undetermined.

Given this prolonged period of quietude and seclusion, Anakin and Ahsoka were justifiably startled to hear the sudden and atrocious grinding noise of the droid storage room’s door as it retracted. Out from it emerged a bedraggled Obi-Wan, rolling each shoulder in turn, cracking his neck and stretching his back as though he’d just been sparring the whole day instead of sitting in one place. Nobody spoke as he walked the few paces required to join the group, settling down on the floor beside Anakin and almost directly below Ahsoka’s hammock.

“Find anything?” Anakin asked, devoting the majority of his focus to the small board from which he was carefully harvesting the remaining capacitors.

Obi-Wan ran a hand through his hair. “No, nothing yet.” A minor cascade of Ubrikkian moon sand fell through his fingers.

Uncharacteristically, the meager conversation stopped at that point for several minutes. Anakin pestered him no more. Dire situation notwithstanding, he actually appreciated the wordless, harmonious proximity of his Master and Padawan, convened as one around him and safe to the point of boredom. Their only meetings of late were in the company of blaster fire.

“Want me to take over?” Ahsoka spoke up. Obi-Wan peered upward from his drowsy, hunched posture on the floor to find her looking down at him.

“Oh don’t worry about me. The offer is appreciated, however.” Then, the fog of sleep in his mind cleared as her words sparked a different idea.

“Although, Anakin,” he prompted while turning his way, “You might be of assistance.”

That got his attention, and Anakin set the circuit board aside.

“Oh? What did you have in mind?”

“Well, you see I’m beginning to think _you’re_ the better candidate here to be monitoring the area for life forms. Your connection with the Force _is_ stronger than anyone we’ve had in recent record, so you’re far more likely than myself to succeed.”

But as rare and precious as compliments from Obi-Wan were, Anakin saw the suggestion for what it truly meant: hours- no, maybe even _days_ -long meditation. And there were few things in the galaxy that Anakin Skywalker loathed more than sitting still and contemplating the Force.

 _“That’s…”_ he resisted instantly, struggling to come up with some meritable excuse, “I mean, I’m kind of in the middle of something. See? And besides—if I’m off meditating, who’s gonna watch the beacon?”

Ahsoka’s hand raised, oblivious to her Master’s intent. “I could watch it. ‘S not like I’m doing anything else to be useful here.”

“Uh-” Anakin hastily intercepted, “Well, it’s- It’s not your standard homing beacon, so as the one who _created_ it, I should be the one-”

“Now _hold_ on,” And Ahsoka dropped down from her perch with a defiant _clack._ “You told me to keep watch over it just a few hours ago! You said, ‘it’s just like a regular scan!’” she supplied with accompanying air quotes, “And, ‘there’s no way we could miss something if it shows up!’”

Obi-Wan chose to remain silent for the time being, thoroughly enjoying the sadistic pleasure of watching his former Padawan squirm. Anakin gave him a nervous glance, but Ahsoka did not relent.

 _“I_ think you just don’t want to meditate!” she railed, finally piecing together what Obi-Wan already knew. “Come on, Master, don’t you think our _survival_ is more important right now?”

Anakin groaned in defeat. _“Fine,_ I’ll do it.” He stood. “But _you’re_ coming with me.”

“Wait- me?”

Obi-Wan chortled behind his hand.

“That’s right,” Anakin continued deviously, “You were just complaining about how I don’t teach you often enough, right? Well, here you go! It’s a perfect opportunity.”

She shrunk in remorse as her words came back to bite her. “I…”

“Hey. If I have to do this, you might as well get something out of it. Let’s go.”

The two then headed off for the droid storage room together, the only quiet place left that was both large enough to sit in and hadn’t harbored a corpse in the last eight hours. Inside the space was bare, stale and rusty. It wasn’t much different than the rest of the ship, save for the charging mounts on the walls where droids might have been, and the unprofessionally hewn pit that had at one point housed an escape pod. Anakin and Ahsoka sat opposite of each other after jointly coercing the stiff door to shut.

“Okay,” she began with eyes closed, “Open my mind, remove all extraneous thoughts…”

The formal recitation was still in her memory, though Anakin never took well to the Temple’s more rigid methods.

“Wait, stop,” he instructed, much to her chagrin, “We’re not trying to do this separately.”

Puzzlement was clear on her face. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Anakin paused to think. To him, the Force was so intrinsic and intuitive that trying to explain it was something like trying to explain how to breathe. It wasn’t something that came with instructions. It just… Worked. “Think of it this way: if we’re both doing the same thing, we’ll just overlap. It won’t be productive.”

“Oh. I guess I understand. You’d probably find something before I do, anyway.” She shrugged, passively wondering whether it was her inexperience or midichlorian count holding her back.

“So what _you_ need to do is focus on me.”

“Focus on you?” Her tone indicated she was asking for more detail, but Anakin didn’t catch on.

“That’s right. I’ll dig around for life forms, you’ll find me in the Force, and then you’ll be able to tell what I’m doing. Then…” his confidence wavered as he once again scrambled for a way to describe, “Uh… Then you sort of… Imitate that? Not what I’m _doing_ , but just- _how_ I’m doing it. Make sense so far?”

“Not even a little bit,” she said flatly.

“Well, let’s just give it a shot. You’ll figure it out on the way.”

Even after an hour of silence, however, Ahsoka had barely managed to complete the first step. Anakin was distinctive in the Force as he was fluctuating. Other Jedi had a certain stillness surrounding their presence, honed over many years, making it easy to lock onto them and tune to their regular wavelengths. Anakin was easy to find—that much was unmistakable—but he simply didn’t _need_ to ground himself in order to command the Force. Focused or unfocused, it bent to his will. Which, for poor Ahsoka, meant she was left to chase after him with every passing thought he had.

She was just about to give up and say so, when the Force ignited from his end. He shot to attention, eyes open and looking left.

“I found something!”

The best news she’d heard all day.

“What?! That’s fantastic!” irritation discarded, she stood in a hurry and made for the door. “I’ll chart us a course. Just give me the coordinates, and-”

“No!” Anakin reached an arm out in warning. “You turn on the engines, and we’re _dead.”_

 _“Dead?_ Why?! And how are we supposed to go _get_ to our rescue, if I can’t turn on the engines?!”

“The engines burn off fuel ten times faster than everything else. We won’t even make it a _klick_ before the whole ship shuts down. Trust me, Ahsoka, do _not_ touch the ignition.” He retracted then and gave the floor a contemplative scowl. “As for our rescue…”

She withstood the urge to start tapping her foot impatiently.

“…Go get Obi-Wan. I think I have an idea.”


	7. Chapter 7

Unbeknownst to him, Obi-Wan fell asleep in the co-pilot’s chair not ten minutes after his protégés left the main room. He dreamed vividly of noxious swamps on Dagobah, scouting around for something important, slogging through thick pools of mud, and eventually—his right arm being gnawed on by a gundark. _Wait- Gundarks? On Dagobah?_ As soon as his conscious mind registered the incongruency of this event, he snapped awake to the more accurate sight of the small Togruta tugging him out of his seat. She yelled something about the Force, he was sure, though he failed to fully comprehend before he was hauled onto his stumbling feet and being pulled somewhere very fast.

His destination turned out to be the now-crowded space of the droid storage unit, where Anakin could be seen in an unusual state of concentration. That alone was enough to prompt Obi-Wan to wake up and decipher the situation more thoughtfully.

“Master,” Anakin acknowledged. He gave Obi-Wan only the briefest glances in recognition; it was becoming increasingly more taxing for him to keep track of the life signature in the Force while he felt it drifting further and further away. “I’ve located a presence, but I’ll need your help to bring it here.”

“You _have?_ Excellent work, Anakin. I’ll orient the ship once you’ve pinpointed our target’s-”

 _“No!”_ he repeated in frustration. “No. That’s the point, like I was just telling Ahsoka. We _can’t_ use the engines because-” For lack of focus, the faint signature blinked in and out at the fringes of his hyperextended perception. _“Agh-_ Just- sit!”

On any other occasion Obi-Wan might have reprimanded such ill-mannered and domineering behavior, but given the circumstances, he judged it prudent to overlook the offense. His knees folded under him as he sat facing Anakin.

“As you wish,” he acquiesced with an irrepressible taint of sarcasm. “I am at your command.”

Anakin wasted no time. “Okay, so the ship is far, but what I want to do is plant a suggestion to the pilot to start flying this way.”

Obi-Wan’s expression changed then to one of extreme skepticism, followed closely by one of weighty deliberation. “That might… No, I’m afraid that won’t work. First of all, you need to assimilate the target’s state of mind into your own. I doubt that’s achievable while you’re barely capable of tracking the entire ship. To say nothing of the task of even _finding_ an impressionable individual at such a great distance.”

“I can do it,” Anakin challenged.

Ahsoka was shocked. She was feeling disheartened listening to Obi-Wan, their resident mind control enthusiast, list off the reasons why their only possible escape route would fail. Yet Anakin was unconvinced. Either he was recklessly overestimating himself (again), or he truly believed he was up to the task.

Surprisingly, Obi-Wan seemed to agree with the latter.

“…Well, we have nothing to lose by trying, I suppose.” He cleared his throat and adjusted himself at the ready to teach. “Performing a mind trick at range is a difficult and uncommon technique. I’ll do my best to instruct you, but you mustn’t lose focus for even an instant.”

Anakin nodded, re-closing his eyes. Ahsoka took this as her signal to settle down and mute herself in the Force to the best of her abilities. This was bound to be the learning experience she was waiting for.

“Now then,” Obi-Wan premised, “Do you see the ship?”

Another nod.

“Good. Next, you must distinguish the individuals aboard in order to pick out your target.”

“Distinguish them?” Anakin pushed back, “I can hardly keep _track_ of them.”

“That is because you’ve appended _yourself_ as the observer. Do not observe them as Anakin Skywalker. You will see much more clearly once you sense them as an extension of the Force.” He could practically see the wheels turning inside his Padawan’s head.

“O…kay…?”

“You’ve done it before, I know. Eliminate your sense of self. This will also assist you when you impose upon the mind of your target.”

“It’s a little _hard_ when I’m trying to listen to you at the same time!” Frustration peaking, he opened his eyes and glared daggers at his instructor—a face Obi-Wan was well-acquainted with from years ago whenever his impatient student couldn’t master something the first time trying.

And just like so long ago, Obi-Wan remained patient. “I’m sorry Anakin, but there is simply no way I can demonstrate this to you in the Force. The distance you’re able to sense outreaches mine by several fold.”

Anakin knew this. Inflamed as he was, he knew it was true. And he’d never said it before, but it always tacitly bothered him that there were ways in which Obi-Wan could never be his equal. Unless…

“I know—you do it _for_ me.”

Obi-Wan stared. “Were you _listening?”_

“I was! You can’t reach the ship, and I can’t send the message. So I will _take_ you to the ship.”

Now _that_ warranted the iconic thinking pose. Obi-Wan immediately began to appraise the idea, while Ahsoka was busy sifting through the cryptic language that Anakin used to communicate it.

“So… Wait. You want to _transport_ … Master Obi-Wan’s Force signature?” she asked.

“Close,” Anakin allowed, “I want to stretch it.” He gesticulated the notion by moving his hands apart from each other, as if that would somehow make things more comprehensible.

“And what does _that_ mean?”

But it was too late; Obi-Wan had bypassed the stage of semantics and entered the realm of theory. “An interesting idea,” he commended. “Normally I’d say it’s impossible, but given our… Unique relationship, there is a chance that might work.”

Contrary to Jedi mandates, Anakin and Obi-Wan’s incredible bond had many uses beyond its prescribed role as a Padawan learning tool. Time wasting, the two resumed posture. Within seconds they became one in the Force—something that thwarted Ahsoka to no end—and Obi-Wan exhaled, surrendering himself to Anakin’s handling. His five senses were gone all at once. There was nothing to grasp here in this strange, endless void, only the winds of the Force that carried with them everything that was Anakin. And then, distortion. The most disturbing sensation of involuntary projection that Obi-Wan had ever felt, blurring and stretching his mind across lightyears to an extent he’d never imagined. The whole universe felt a thousand times smaller. At the same time, the Force felt magnified. Every minute pulse from eons ago and systems away rippled over him like tiny waves on an ocean surface. _So this is the Force,_ he found himself re-discovering, viewed from the lens of the most Force-sensitive being in the galaxy.

With his own power doubled on top of Anakin’s, anything was perceptible. It therefore was almost laughable how easy it was to pick out those sentients in the far-off ship. They felt so… small. _Dangerously_ small, inside this boundless network, as if they were perhaps so insignificant that their presence or absence would mean nothing. The Force was just so grand by comparison. And as part of this immensity, it was correspondingly effortless for Obi-Wan to integrate himself into the minds of every last person on this ship, convincing them all en masse that the single most important thing to be doing right now was to change course and dock onto one peculiarly junky ship floating somewhere near Ubrikkia.

No sooner than the request was relayed, however, everything went dark. The tremendous wealth of power coursing through him dissolved abruptly, taking with it his grasp on those sentients, Anakin, and the entirety of the Force. Anakin was suddenly alone. He felt a bitter loss from his end, like he was thrown from a warm bed and into the wastelands of Hoth. And if that wasn’t enough to wake him, the backhanded slap from his Padawan’s hand surely was.

 _“Augh!”_ he jerked with a start, striking out an arm to prevent himself from toppling over. His head swam, the Force billowed, and his cheek stung like it was on fire. The next thing he knew, she was in the middle of his sideways vision waving wildly to a spot on the floor across from them. It took him a bit, but Anakin managed to deduce through his impaired cognizance that she meant for him to look that way. Across from them both laid a blurry, limp Obi-Wan in an unresponsive heap.

The whole scene was so unexpected that Anakin forgot to take offense about being slapped. He propelled himself to action—and promptly slid back to the ground the moment he stood up. The corporeal world was so much heavier than he remembered. He at least managed to fall within reaching distance, though, and so from his own tangled spot he grabbed hold of Obi-Wan’s foot.

“Hey,” he tried feebly, “Hey wake- _whoa.”_ Even just touching him briefly incited a magnificent swell in the Force that slingshot between them. Before today, Anakin though he understood his abilities. Conjoining them with Obi-Wan’s, however, unveiled the limitless scope of which he was only a mere constituent. But whereas Anakin was relatively well-built to accommodate such an inflated capacity, Obi-Wan was _not_ , in any way. Retreating slowly, he shuffled into a stilted sitting position and stared wide ahead while he waited for the sensation to peter out.

It was then that Ahsoka decided the situation was in need of new management. “Master!” she called out sternly, hoisting Obi-Wan partially upright by his underarms. “Can you hear me?! Master _Obi-Wan!_ Hello? _”_ The combination of her incessant shouting right by his ear and the shock of Anakin’s agitating the Force just prior was narrowly sufficient to rouse him, albeit groggily and accompanied with great, crashing nausea.

He convulsed once in her arms, blinking perhaps a hundred times as his brain tried to scrape together some semblance of consciousness from its scattered residence within the nearest radial lightyear.

“Oh, great!” She scolded over toward Anakin, “You broke him!”

In response, Anakin pointed weakly in her general direction—which was oddly changing all the time. “Hey. _I_ didn’t do this. It’s…” Words failing, he waved his cybernetic hand in the air. “…It’s complicated.”

“Well _that’s_ useful.”

Moments later, as the three of them were figuring out the safest approach to standing, they each felt the hull of their ship rock. Coupled with the tell-tale sound of airlock compressors suctioning onto its side, at least two of them became keenly aware that their rescue had arrived. _Much_ more quickly than they were prepared for.


	8. Chapter 8

They clambered to the main entrance gate as fast as they could, which, really, was not very fast at all. Ahsoka was regrettably stuck playing the part of Obi-Wan’s crutch while he re-learned how to walk. Anakin primarily relied on the walls for support, at one point slipping onto his face and thereby reopening the cut on his head.

From the other side of the main gate, a number of footsteps could be heard as they approached, presumably through the docking tunnel connected by the rescuing ship. Another echo reverberated at the same time in the shape of a wary voice in Basic.

“Oh! How strange,” it remarked, followed by a timid knock on the metal plate dividing them. A second voice chimed in not long after:

 _“Hello?_ If there is anyone in there, will you please open the gate?”

“Uh- Coming!” Ahsoka answered instinctively.

Hoisting himself halfway upright, Anakin swung an arm back toward the cockpit. “Snips! Go get the door!” he whisper-yelled so as to not alarm their saviors.

“I _can’t!_ Remember?!” she volleyed back in a mirrored, hushed tone. “It’s broken!”

At the end of his patience, Anakin wobbled his way to the nonfunctional gate and drew his lightsaber. At least four different people on the other side of the gate gasped in unison when they witnessed a blue beam stab in near their legs. They continued this way in utter amazement for the full length of time it took to cut a clean hole, and by the end of it Anakin was patently _finished_ hearing their mesmerized “How peculiar!”s and “I’ve never seen anything like this!” The slab of molten metal dropped in with a _thud._

He was far less cautious than usual about maneuvering through the hole without sustaining a burn. When he stood back to (semi-)full height, what he saw made him freeze on the spot: a group of six elegantly dressed, bluish-skinned Koorivars, who might as well have been watching him like some rare, zoological specimen. _Koorivars,_ Anakin bemoaned _. Separatists._ So, he did what he always did when confronted with the enemy. Lifting the blade still active in his hand, he threatened the necks of each curious Koorivar in turn. “Nobody move!” he demanded. In spite of his less-than-intimidating stance, the group was successfully terrified _._

Such was the scenario thrown into Ahsoka’s lap when she finally pulled the last of herself and Obi-Wan through the breach. “What? Hey!” she admonished—though she too was fully aware of the threat they’d walked into. Ultimately it was Obi-Wan who took the initiative to defuse the looming battle; clumsily and lethargically he reached up and rested his hand atop Anakin’s, forcibly lowering his weapon. “Now- _Stop,”_ he managed.

Obediently, the beam was retracted. Still, that simple act was inadequate to completely quell the Koorivars’ fears. After all, the lightsaber was a Jedi weapon. And the Jedi were _not_ friends.

“Y-you are Jedi!” the frontmost Koorivar squealed. His ornate, golden jewelry jingled as he withdrew to the wall. His shipmates reacted in much the same way.

“No!” Ahsoka cried, “We’re just, um…” But it was near impossible for her to come up with a viable, on-the-spot excuse for why three people coming from the same ship would all be carrying lightsaber hilts at their sides. Then again, maybe she didn’t have to. Gathering everything she gleaned from their impromptu training session in mind control, Ahsoka put her observations to practice. “We are _not_ Jedi,” she said in a slow, meticulous manner. Her one free hand swept over the frightened group of Koorivars. As it did, she invited their fear and confusion into her mind, accepting it without alteration, carefully inserting her desired notion in a way that would not contradict how they already felt. 

A few members of the group repeated her words, internalizing their meaning, while those who didn’t could be seen nodding soundlessly. Anakin was impressed. He peered down at her with a look of surprise, matched by the proud beaming of Obi-Wan. Ahsoka felt rather pleased with herself, too—until the conversation continued.

“I… see. You are not Jedi,” the Koorivar agreed, “But then… Who _are_ you?”

She hadn’t planned quite that far.

“Uh, we’re- Uhh… This is… The governor! Of- Of Ubrikkia!” she spouted, patting Obi-Wan’s head. “He’s _very_ sick, and… And our ship was attacked by pirates! Please! You have to help us!”

Anakin feigned a cough to avoid busting out laughing.

“The governor, you say? I was not aware that Ubrikkia was even inhabited.” The Koorivar’s tone was now laced with suspicion.

Sensing this, Ahsoka felt a twinge of panic creep into her voice. “Oh! Uh- it is, actually, it’s just… Um…” The invalid being supported by her arm then began to move, shrouding his wretched state behind a curtain of nobility and fraudulent health.

“A thousand pardons, my good man, the young one gets nervous around unfamiliar faces.” To his credit, he stood fairly well on his own—within range of both his students’ ready arms. “We represent a colony seeking to migrate onto Ubrikkia. The war has all but destroyed our homes, though we remain hopeful that we may soon rebuild our peaceful society using biodomes that will withstand the harsh conditions on-planet.”

Obi-Wan knew the history of Kooriva. He knew that the Koorivar people were once forced to leave their home world due to conditions outside their control, and since then had fought with the Republic to purchase a new world of their own. His story was bound to garner sympathy. Separatist or not, their current political affiliations would not erase such a deciding moment for their entire race.

“This war is _tragic,”_ empathized the Koorivar speaker. “Our people know the pain of displacement. We would be honored to… Governor?”

With his senses as dull as they were, Obi-Wan failed to notice the blood running from his nose until he could taste it on his lips. Anakin _had_ tried to covertly warn him during his speech of support on Ahsoka’s lie. Immediately, he lurched forward and reached up to his face to prevent any more blood from falling. The act unfortunately stole his fragile balance, however, and he soon found himself stumbling into Anakin’s grip.

“Come, come now we have idled too long!” the Koorivar worried. He gestured gracefully to his associates then, who complied with his wish and started their return journey down the docking chamber into their ship. Everything smelled cleaner already. As they walked, it was now Anakin’s responsibility to hobble along towing Obi-Wan. Predictably though, his assignment didn’t last, and halfway down the hall he called for a swap before they _both_ dropped unconscious.

While the three of them were coordinating the exchange, their host turned and stopped. “It is a pleasure to have the new governor of Ubrikkia on board, but I _would_ like to know who _you_ are.”

Anakin sloughed the last limb of Obi-Wan’s weight onto Ahsoka. “An excellent question,” he accepted, out of breath and turning toward her, “Care to _introduce us?”_ If she started this lie, it was her job to carry it through.

In return, she gave him the quickest, meanest look of reproval she could come up with before changing face and addressing the Koorivar. “My name is… Chinwe. I’m the governor’s aide.” It felt true enough, at least, considering their actual relation and the fact she’d been lugging him around for the past few minutes.

“And your friend?”

“This is- Uh, this is Skimpo!”

Anakin’s left eyebrow shot up as he silently mouthed his new name.

“He’s, um, he is… The governor’s… Husband!”

The Force was electrified as both Anakin and Obi-Wan shot her the exact same, horrified expression.

Anakin nearly choked when he next tried to speak. “Yes! _Ahem-_ You see, I’m very worried about… Dudon, here-” Obi-Wan flinched on recognition of his name as the Rodian word for _idiot,_ “-Do you have any place we can stay until he’s well enough to move?”

“Yes, I believe I still have a room to spare. My guests are using the others.” Questions sated, he resumed his path to the ship. “I will also activate the medical droid. Your wound does appear fresh, Skimpo.”

 _Skimpo._ Anakin was _definitely_ putting Ahsoka on Temple guard duty if ever they made it back home. “Yeah uh, those pirates really put up a fight. When they attacked. I’m Governor Dudon’s bodyguard, actually. That’s how we met.”

“Aw, how sweet.”

He didn’t need to see Obi-Wan in order to feel his unbridled hostility.


	9. Chapter 9

Although none of them saw the ship incoming before it docked, it was clear from the interior design that they were now aboard an incredibly high budget luxury cruiser. The corridors were pristine, white and oval-shaped, interrupted only by the black view of space afforded by an evenly spaced number of hexagonal windows. The guests certainly fit the extravagant picture, too. Each Koorivar caught spying on the group was garbed in innumerable layers of shimmersilk, which always coordinated with the diverse types of precious jewels composing the baubles arranged around their headscarves. At least they didn’t seem hostile. Just curious, just shy, and _very_ entertained.

The room in which Obi-Wan, Anakin and Ahsoka were deposited in was far less adorned. A small space no bigger than their previous ship’s bunk room, this one was still an improvement by leagues due to the pleasing absence of dead-body-smell. Four bunks in total could be folded out from the walls. The two closest to the ground were folded out first, followed by one of the remaining upper bunks, which Ahsoka colonized without debate. After their host finished his apology for the room’s lack of décor, he left the group with a promise to return later. His other guests were still waiting. Given the ship’s sudden acquisition, they were all extra eager for their soon-coming dinner party, where the gossip was sure to be delicious. 

“What was _that?!”_ Anakin fumed as soon as they were alone. “Ubrikkian _government?_ And now I’m married to Obi-Wan?!”

Swinging her legs off the edge of her bunk, Ahsoka put her hands on her hips. “I panicked! Okay?! Just be grateful they even let us on board.”

“Well panic _better_ next time!”

“Ahsoka is right,” defended Obi-Wan as he shuffled into a sitting position upon his own bunk, “Our situation may not be ideal, but you mustn’t ignore the fact that, thanks to her, we’ve been able to board without confrontation. I can hardly imagine the damage it would do to the Republic if we’d taken the ship by force.”

Just then, the argument was halted by a loud knock on the door. All three of them froze. The Koorivar host hadn’t returned _that_ soon, had he? There were _several_ words used in the last minute that would positively shatter their fragile story if anyone heard. So, anticipating the worst, Anakin prepared to overwrite the most recent memories of the person waiting outside. He lifted a hand, pressed the door button… And immediately deflated.

The medical droid standing at attention greeted him in its cordial, impassive tone.

“Good afternoon. I am CEV-1826. I was instructed to examine all new passengers in room four.”

“It’s just the medical droid,” mumbled Anakin, mostly to himself.

Fear subsided, the droid was allowed to enter and the doors closed again.

“So? What now?” Ahsoka lounged comfortably while she waited for her turn to be scanned.

Anakin did his best to hold still while the droid probed for infection and sprayed his cut clean. “Well we can’t exactly ask them to drop us off at Coruscant. Or any allied world of the Republic, for that matter.”

“How about a neutral system? If we’re pretending to be colonists, then it would make sense that we wouldn’t be allied with either side yet.”

“I predict they’ll offer to contact our colony from inside the ship,” Obi-Wan contributed. “Which would no doubt spell trouble on its own. In any case, I think we should stay awhile. It’s rather curious for a lone Separatist ship to be traveling so far away from civilized society, don’t you think? Don’t you wonder what they’re doing out here?”

“No, I— _ow!_ —I don’t.” Anakin batted the medical droid away when its application of a bacta patch became a little too thorough. “They’re just a bunch of rich politicians wasting time on some dinner cruise. Let’s leave it at that and go home.”

“Sorry Master Obi-Wan, I gotta agree with Skyguy on this one,” supported Ahsoka. “We’ve pushed our luck far enough for one day.”

“Oh come now, consider the _value_ we might derive from a small bit of investigation. We hold the advantage now as the enemy believes us to be unaffiliated in the war. If we play into their favor, we might reveal something about the Separatists’ plans.” Twice during his rebuttal he shooed the poor medical droid away like it were some trivial nuisance.

 _“Or_ we might run into their Separatist _pals_ if we stay too long, who might not be as easy to fool as these guys.” Equally as uncooperative, Anakin was already beginning to unconsciously pick at the edges of his new bacta patch.

“Another point which may be elucidated through investigation.”

“Elucidation won’t do us much _good_ once the enemy is _right on top of us.”_

“Then perhaps _you’d_ like to convince the enemy to release us unquestioningly onto your world of choice?”

Anakin bristled, but had no retort. It was obvious to everyone that Obi-Wan was going to be their spokesperson, as was usually the case. Unfortunately, that also meant it was _his_ idea that he would advocate for, unless definitively proven wrong. And Obi-Wan was notoriously stubborn.

“You know what? _Fine._ Do it your way. But in the meantime, Ahsoka and I are going to the control room so that when things go wrong, _we’ll_ be ready to get us out of here.”

Ahsoka wasn’t so sure she wanted to be included in this rapidly polarizing feud.

“So long as you don’t _start_ anything,” Obi-Wan insinuated.

 _“Us?! You’re_ the one who-!” Dropping what he knew would inevitably become a prolonged rant, Anakin scoffed and shook his head. “When this is over, I’m filing for divorce.”

Obi-Wan folded his arms. “You’ll hear no complaints from me.”

Once he deemed himself stable enough to risk standing and talking at the same time, Obi-Wan sent himself to befriend the Koorivars. In the meantime, Ahsoka led the way down the halls in the opposite direction, checking to see when the coast was clear for Anakin to advance. If their timing aligned well enough, then the ship would be reasonably clear while Obi-Wan regaled the guests with whichever half-truths and tall tales he’d conjure to distract them from wandering around. For the most part things seemed to proceed smoothly this way. It was only once Anakin and Ahsoka reached the bridge that their first challenge arose.

Skulking in through the sliding door, they stood up much straighter when met with the gaze of the two pilots on duty. Two _battle droid_ pilots, they were quick to observe. The B-1s each swiveled over to face them.

“Hey, you’re not allowed in here!” the first one accused, tailed by its co-pilot’s sudden realization:

“Wait a minute—those are _Jedi!”_

Mind tricks were useless against the brainless programming of droids. There would be no convincing them like the Koorivars, and so in perfect concert, both Jedi launched forward and sliced the droids’ heads from their thin, spindly necks. Anakin shoved the remains off the pilot’s chair before it even went slack.

“I can use the ship’s communication relay to send an encrypted message to the Temple,” he announced, already stealing the droid’s place.

On the other end of the cockpit, Ahsoka tapped around the switchboard in search of coordinates. “Just make sure the Koorivars can’t trace the line back to Coruscant. …Got it.” Thankfully, the ship’s destination wasn’t input only into the now-dead droids ordered to pilot it. The target coordinates appeared in bright blue on the holographic screen before her. “Looks like the ship was on auto-pilot,” she reported, “We’re heading toward… No, that can’t be right. We’re heading toward…” She re-checked her results to no avail. “…Nothing?”

Peering over her shoulder, Anakin was just as confused when Ahsoka cross-referenced the coordinates with a map of the current sector and its surrounding neighbors. Sure enough, their destination was nothing but empty space.

“That’s weird,” he commented, scratching the side of his head. “Could be a waypoint. Or they might’ve picked an empty point on purpose, if this really is just a pleasure cruise.”

“Or it could be a _rendezvous_ point,” Ahsoka added cynically.

“…Or that, yeah.” Appreciating the gravity of her suggestion, Anakin returned to his encryption with haste. “Search the computers for any details about those coordinates. Even if it _is_ nothing, we still have to know where the ship should be going next so the Koorivars don’t suspect anything.”

She was already fast on the job. “Right. Because a couple of decapitated droids won’t make them suspicious at _all.”_

Meanwhile, Obi-Wan held his audience captive with the rich—albeit completely fabricated—history of the would-be Ubrikkian colonists. The guests at the long, bountiful table had hardly touched their dinner in favor of listening to him speak.

“So _valiant!”_ one woman applauded. The strings of gold on her headdress rustled obnoxiously. “Simply incredible. I find it _shocking_ that your people have gone so unnoticed for so long.”

Obi-Wan feigned a humble expression. “Alas, given our disparate origins and lack of a home world, there are few who would recognize us as an organized people. The bulk of our efforts within the last decade have been to attain a place to settle in, of course. Publicity is a luxury we cannot afford.” He sipped on his third glass of Naboo-imported wine as the Koorivars’ sympathy drenched the Force.

“Governor Dudon,” said a hefty man in red robes, “I know that your people’s internal hardships have motivated you to avoid the politics of the war, but I beseech you! Come to the Separatists’ fold. We take care of our own. Unlike the _Republic.”_

Several of the group then offered sentiments of agreement over their communal hatred of the Republic. Some even adjoined their criticism of the Jedi, but Obi-Wan regained control of the discourse before things flew out of hand.

“That has been tempting, at times,” he lied smoothly, “And I must admit I _do_ find the Separatist cause more worthy than the Republic’s. However, what continues to evade me is _how_ the Confederacy intends to surmount such a daunting opponent.”

The host of the group was first to spring Obi-Wan’s trap. “Why friend, we see progress every day! More and more worlds are standing against the sluggish bureaucracy of the Republic and protecting worlds more from Republic imposition.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that.” _Too aware,_ Obi-Wan thought privately while swirling his drink. “But by what means? In which order? As leader of the Ubrikkian people, it would be irresponsible of me to pledge our allegiance to the Separatist Alliance without a more detailed understanding of the plans we may very well be supporting. Tell me—which system does the Alliance intend to liberate next?”

At that, the guests were visibly unsure. They grew quieter in their commotion, each of them trying to recall the specifics of the Separatists’ next move. Such was the detriment of dealing with hedonists. They cared less to involve themselves in the grittier, strategic elements of war, and instead preferred to spout lofty generalizations about the Confederacy and the “good work” it was doing for the galaxy. At least they weren’t put off by Obi-Wan’s asking.

“Actually, Governor Dudon,” the host spoke at last, “Why don’t you join us at the private viewing of our latest military advancement? Count Dooku invited us to the event personally. Geonosian technology at its finest! I’ve been told it was the very last design we received before the planet fell into the hands of the enemy.”

 _Jackpot._ Obi-Wan needed no lies to express his full interest. “You don’t say! I reckon that would be a good a time as any to converse with other members of the Separatist Council.”

“Yes, yes! I am _sure_ they could provide you with all the details you require to make an informed decision about aiding our cause.”

The next question Obi-Wan had in stock went unasked, because just as he made to speak, the dining room door _swooshed_ open and in stormed Anakin with enough speed and urgency to silence the whole table.

“Come with me,” he demanded brusquely, paying absolutely no mind to the Koorivars staring his way.

“Whatever is the matter, my love?”

It took every thread of patience Anakin had to forcibly disregard the pet name and the grating amount of innocence with which it was delivered. In response, he grabbed Obi-Wan’s forearm and pulled him out of his seat. Ahsoka could be seen further down the hall, gesturing in great, anxious circles for the pair to return as quickly as possible.

“I said _come on, sweetheart.”_

Downing the rest of his wine in one swig, Obi-Wan did what he could to bow to the group from his awkward position. “Ah- Terribly sorry, you’ll have to excuse us a moment. Please, carry on.”

Anakin all but dragged him into the hall. The door closed behind them, they rounded a corner, and as soon as Ahsoka joined up, their meeting commenced.

“Obi-Wan, you’re not gonna like this.” Anakin premised.

“Heaven forbid you interrupt me with _good_ news, for once.”

“So here’s the deal: the Koorivars are heading to a Separatist warship stationed outside Chalacta. Ahsoka found records of an invitation to the ship’s coordinates. We have to get off this ship _now_ before it arrives and we all become droid bait.”

“-Or hostages!” appended Ahsoka.

“That fits with everything _I’ve_ heard,” Obi-Wan replied, unfazed. “I learned that our friends are traveling to witness the demonstration of a new super weapon. The weapon must be contained on this warship you mentioned.”

With this added piece of the puzzle, the mission objective changed. Ahsoka looked over at Anakin to see him reanalyzing the situation.

“Oh no,” she worried, “Another one? Seriously, who keeps _making_ these things?!”

Obi-Wan shrugged. “The Geonosians, apparently. It seems we were a little off-schedule when we took the planet the second time.”

“I don’t like it,” Anakin sighed, completing his deliberation, “But I don’t think we have a choice. We need to get rid of that weapon. We’ll have to get onboard the warship, lose the Koorivars, and make our way to the weapon without being spotted.”

“I see you're coming around to my point of view, after all,” Obi-Wan complied. He tapped Anakin’s forehead with the rim of his empty glass. Ahsoka took pause at the peculiar behavior, and Anakin gently removed the offending glass from his hand, hoping his Master hadn’t added insult to injury by drinking on an empty stomach and a Force-jumbled brain.


	10. Chapter 10

Aside from having very little information about the warship in general, time was limited while the dinner party proceeded in the absence of its special guest. A crude plan was therefore laid out—one that outlined the team’s goals and their specialized roles, as well as a haphazard Plan B that consisted of little more than a vague procedure for hijacking a ship to escape.

Obi-Wan returned to the gathering with his ‘husband’ in tow. After soothing everyone’s concerns about the abruptness of his exit, he negotiated an extra chair for the table, and the plan was set in motion. Ahsoka was on her way back to the cockpit in order to land the ship in place of the droids. Anakin’s job was to sit quietly in place beside Obi-Wan, picking slowly at his food and awaiting the signal to act. From the data in the control room, he’d ascertained that the cruise ship was scheduled to rendezvous in about thirty minutes. That gave them only a small window to reconvene and formulate a response. So while the clocked ticked down to mission commencement, Obi-Wan simultaneously wasted time and shrouded their true intentions by revitalizing the group’s conversation about a topic he knew could distract the Koorivars for days: baseless complaints about the Republic. All that he and Anakin had to do was nod along every now and again.

And, right on schedule, the pilot droid’s voice sounded off over the intercom. At least—its disconnected head did. Ahsoka wired it to text input from the cockpit control board. “Docking in T-minus five,” it announced to the ship’s every room. The voice was more monotone than it would be were the droid fully functional, but it served its purpose to launch the first phase of the plan without arousing suspicion.

The hosting Koorivar looked up as his guests fell silent. “It’s that time already?” he marveled briefly, then moved to stand up from his seat. “Oh, very well. Come, everyone!” he clapped, “Our after-dinner entertainment has nearly arrived. Follow me to the docking bay.”

Obi-Wan met Anakin’s eyes with a knowing, sidelong glance, and Anakin dipped his head in return.

“Excellent. Shall I accompany you at the front?” Obi-Wan offered just before rising—and stumbling off to the side. His left hand shot to the seatback to steady himself, while his right clasped over the strain building inside his forehead.

“Dudon!” several of the group exclaimed, not least of which was Anakin, who burst from his chair and rushed to his Master’s side.

“Whoa now, I’ve got you. …Are you gonna be okay?” Hovering protectively behind him, he rested his hands on Obi-Wan’s shoulders.

“Yes—thank you.” Obi-Wan bent himself upright. He continued to rely on the chair for insurance, however, and rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

A troubled expression bloomed over Anakin’s brow. “Are you sure? I mean, you’ve been sick ever since yesterday morning…” He then glanced furtively toward the group, entreating their support while secretly gauging their belief.

“Don’t worry about me, darling, it’s only a short walk.” But upon releasing the chair, his legs faltered beneath him and Anakin was suddenly put into service instead.

The Koorivars gasped.

 _“Urgh-_ Dudon,” Anakin pled, struggling to maneuver the very _real_ weight that Obi-Wan threw upon him, “Would it really be so bad for you to stay here and rest?”

“I’m _fine,_ Skimpo.” He clambered back to position himself something a bit more like a normal person. “You worry too much. I’ll be back before you’ve even noticed I’m gone.”

In truth, the two were planning to continue this way for as long and extravagantly as needed, but much to their relief, the one especially _jingly_ Koorivar woman intervened. “Perhaps-” she started nervously, “Perhaps it _would_ be best… If the Governor were to lie down?”

Anakin looked at her with as much gratitude as he could plaster over his face.

“Oh, no please, really everything is quite all right,” Obi-Wan countered. “I simply _can’t_ miss this meeting- _Oh!”_ Accepting a subtle cue from Anakin, he slipped halfway down when he felt the arm hugging his side pull back.

“Master- _Uh,_ Dudon!”

Petrified over his mistake, Anakin stopped. Obi-Wan stopped. The Koorivars stopped, too. And then, Obi-Wan broke into a vociferous coughing fit, while Anakin tried his very best _not_ to react to the stinging punishment of the boot smashing into his toes.

“I- I told you-” Obi-Wan sputtered out between his false retching, “I am- your _husband_ now, not your employer!”

It was an awkward save, to be sure, but it was a save nonetheless and Anakin ran with it for lack of a better excuse. “I know, I know! I’m sorry. I know,” he feigned, hoping the pain in his voice would seem more related to the effort required to keep Obi-Wan off the ground.

But then, the Koorivar host commanded the room. _“Enough_ of this,” he ruled, and the two froze on the spot with a magnified undercurrent of panic. “Governor _Dudon…”_ he continued at last. Displeasure was laced into every fiber of his bearing. “…I highly suggest that you heed Skimpo’s valid concern. Since you _arrived_ you have been in questionable condition, and although I too am eager to introduce you to the Council, I see now that your health is prohibitive. It would be most unbecoming of me to worsen your condition by allowing you out of this ship.”

_Thank the Force._

Anakin half expected the host to admonish them for their ruse and demand explanation, but as things turned out, he jumped at the opportunity to seal the deal and move to phase two. Touching his cybernetic fingers to Obi-Wan’s cheek, he gazed down at him imploringly. “…Please? For me?”

The Force barked _“STOP,”_ in a hail of disgust, but outwardly, Obi-Wan merely sighed and conceded. “Oh, all right. If you insist.”

And so the Koorivar party disbanded. They sent Obi-Wan to his provisional quarters with full confidence that his husband _Skimpo_ would tend to his every need. Alone now, the pair waited outside their cramped bunk room as Ahsoka landed the ship into hangar number forty-three. As seen from the nearest window, the Separatist warship was _colossal_. A tall, cylindrical work of art, the sleek-looking ship must have contained over eighty stories of droids, weaponry, and anything else it needed to stock as many battalions as could be packed into its tremendous hull. And as with most Separatist warships, it was one-of-a-kind. Only Count Dooku and his associates could afford to fund prototype after prototype of cutting-edge technology like this. Which, of course, made it all the more difficult for the Republic to predict the manner of assault whenever one of them showed up.

The medical droid sent to reexamine Obi-Wan had already been turned off by the time Ahsoka arrived at their room. “Hey, sorry I’m late,” she greeted them casually, “I didn’t want the blue guys to see me heading back from the control area.”

“About _time,”_ Anakin snapped. “Is everyone off the ship?”

“Should be. I saw a group of battle droids escorting them through a big set of doors. It’s a good thing we didn’t follow them; the droids would’ve figured us out for sure.”

“I’m starting to think that might’ve been the better option anyway,” he despaired.

“You _want_ to get caught?”

“No! Of course not! I’m just saying, this ship is way bigger than I was imagining. We’ll never be able to find where they’re storing the weapon. Even if we hack a terminal, the most we’re going to find off a map is that there’s over a _hundred_ different rooms here big enough to hold something like that.”

“Well,” Obi-Wan piped up from the background, perfectly well and walking without assistance, “Then we’d better start looking.”

Without a better idea in stock, the team ventured forth. The empty hangar was spacious and grey, polished as though it had only recently come out of production. Every small movement sent magnificent soundwaves throughout the structure. They learned as much, when the instant Ahsoka leapt out the emergency side hatch her soft, pliable soles emitted the loudest, most obtrusive, and _least_ stealthy noise they could possibly have wished for. She cringed on the spot. _So much for stealth._ Apologetically, she looked up and back toward both Masters still on the ship, expecting to witness their palpable disappointment. Instead, she found them each shooing her away in desperation, one of them pointing toward the inquisitive battle droids beginning to enter the room, and the other pointing her in the direction of the nearest door. She ran. As she did, Anakin materialized in front of her, clanging onto the ground with an _even louder_ sound than her own. Obviously, their cover was blown from the get-go. He thrust the target doorway open with a swing of his arm.

 _Safe._ The hallway they’d entered was quiet and bare, extending far into the distance and branching multiple times both left and right. The first thing they did was a quick scan for cameras, but once she had the mind to notice, Ahsoka saw that Obi-Wan hadn’t joined them when they finally reached the interior. She would have said so, too, but the moment she opened her mouth, she found herself being flung brusquely into an alcove. Her back hit the wall with a _bang._ Anakin practically smothered her. But she didn’t have time to be upset about the imposition, for when she next opened her eyes, she spotted a squad- no, an entire _company_ of B-2 battle droids marching past their shadowy hideout and into the hangar.

Not even a minute had passed, and they’d already attracted enough droids to comprise a small army.


	11. Chapter 11

“Don’t you think we should go back?!” shouted Ahsoka while her feet sprinted in an agile blur underneath her.

Blaster fire abound echoed through the long hall, originating from the landing site of their Koorivar luxury cruiser. The floor of the warship trembled and boomed with each passing shot.

“Nah!” came Anakin’s simple response. With his lightsaber ignited precautionarily, he lost no time between the initial sighting of a droideka rounding the corner and his surging response to rip through it before it had the chance to react. Unfortunately, droidekas always came in pairs.

…Or at least, even numbers. Three more replaced the one that Anakin severed, rolling up and snapping to gunner position before he could even return to a defensive stance. Six bolts were thus loosed to pierce him, and as he swerved haphazardly to swat them away, the lightning shape of his Padawan appeared on his guard. Two sabers trailed in fast, snakelike patterns of yellow and green, efficiently dispelling the threat and then rushing behind the three droids to distract their next aim. Anakin seized the opening she created. Ahsoka danced around what she could not deflect, dodging flares of plasma and hot metal that had melted off the floors and walls where the droideka fire struck. All the while, her Master hopped through their formation, slicing the occupied droids from behind until not one remained.

If only they had time to congratulate one another on their impromptu teamwork. As soon as the final droid fell and their blasters went quiet, the comparatively meek sound of a whistling probe droid became audible. They met each other’s eyes in a shared expression of alarm.

“Where is it?!” Ahsoka cried, swiveling this way and that in search of the tiny machine that would doubtlessly run off and alert the whole ship.

“I don’t know! Keep looking!” It took Anakin all of two powerful, Force-assisted steps to lunge around the corner and zoom back again.

“I can’t— _There!”_ Sights locked, Ahsoka pointed her left saber toward the saucer-like droid drifting near the upper-right corner of the ceiling several meters away. The thing was no larger than a teacup, yet it sped off like a terrified insect on the run from a starved predator. “Oh _no you don’t!”_

They each vaulted down the corridor in respective blazes of fulgent blue and green. Overhead lights flashed by as they ran, flicking to life by way of motion sensor every eight meters they traveled. The probe droid, by contrast, glowed a constant, dim red. It gradually drew closer the harder they ran, until Anakin was just about ready to spring forth and pounce. He leaned forward to jump, and just then an immense tremor filled the hall, so intense that it seemed like an earthquake had suddenly shocked through the ship. Arms whirling, he reeled gracelessly to avoid toppling over. Ahsoka was thrown off-balance, too, though she narrowly managed to outclass the screaming probe droid, which was stricken by one of the ceiling beams and entered a spiraling nose-dive into the wall. She leapt like a spider before it could reorient. Clasping onto the surprisingly helpful beam, her lightsaber carved through the droid with zero resistance.

“We’d better come up with a way to find that weapon—and _fast,”_ Anakin said as his apprentice (and the poor droid she slaughtered) dropped down to the space just beside him. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

The two took off at a dash once again, leaving the continuous rumbling further and further behind with every step they ran. But back inside hangar number forty-three, sparks rained like waterfalls. The silky white shape of the Koorivar cruiser swung violently into walls, storage crates, and the many hordes of battle droids sending blaster fire its way. So certain was Obi-Wan that the ship would possess _some_ useful array of armaments, however small, that he elected to remain on board to ensure his students’ escape. The last-minute plan he concocted was to employ the ship’s cannons as a deterrent, but he hadn’t anticipated the scant possibility that their craft was completely unarmed. Thus, with his only other option being direct confrontation with perhaps a full battalion waiting outside, he grabbed the controls and began to repurpose the ship as an oversized bludgeoning weapon.

 _“Ridiculous,”_ he muttered to no one. The clean, spacious cockpit was filled with alarms. “And what do you suppose the crew is expected to do when confronted with asteroids?” About a dozen B-1s wailed in dismay as the ship crashed upon them, mowing their ranks with an ear-splitting _screech_ from the deep scrapes being sawed into the hangar floor.

“Politely request that they float on by? Rubbish.” The ship rose again, this time wobbling feebly before hurling itself into an oncoming line of reinforcement B-2s. Obi-Wan rubbed over the back of his neck. Too much more of this and he’d end up with whiplash. Peering about for his next set of victims, though, he realized that whiplash would be the _least_ of his concerns: as the newest rank of droids poured into the room, they were now accompanied by a formidable entourage of dwarf spider droids.

“…Oh. Oh dear.”

He had mere seconds to drop the controls and hit the deck before the spider droids’ heavy cannons blasted through the main viewport. Millions of transparisteel shards flooded the cockpit inside. Anything the cannon bolts didn’t incinerate on impact was sliced and stabbed to inoperation, leaving the control room naught but a prickly and sparking inferno. As a secondary result, the whole ship then thrashed and _burst_ from one end, filling the hangar with smoke and spewing flames on its way down to the ground, never to rise again.

It was all Obi-Wan could do to hold tight in his small space underneath the blaring control boards. He braced himself with all four limbs as best he could, though the crash tossed him anyway, pitching him far from the control boards and into the doors. That is—pitching him _through_ the doors to the control room, given they’d already been conveniently blown away by spider droid cannons. He therefore found himself sliding in a sooty heap across the very floors he’d been strolling over not too long ago in pleasant conversation.

“Not the _best_ way to show appreciation,” he remarked as he climbed back to his feet. The Koorivars might’ve been ignorant Separatists, but they were undeniably decent enough to lend a helping hand to some strangers in need. …With a healthy dose of mind control, at first. Obi-Wan estimated he’d have a minute or so to himself before the droids infiltrated the fiery remains of his ship and tracked his location. He counted the seconds in the back of his mind while he drummed up a plan to respond. At the _forefront_ of his mind, however, he scanned the debris for any sign of his lightsaber, which had apparently been lost in the crash.

The droids advanced, unperturbed. The flames engulfing the hull posed little issue for their metal frames, and wherever an obstacle was encountered, they blasted through with ease on their way to pursue. Their incredible numbers only swelled more without the ship whirling about to dissuade them. By the time they smashed through the final wall separating them from their prey, the hangar was fully saturated, not a single space left undefended. Obi-Wan knew this before he stood up. Kneeling at a pile of scrap, he brushed the debris away to reveal his afore-missing lightsaber hilt. And just as he stood with arms up, he tapped the comm unit to life on his wrist.

“All right, I surrender.”

Rooms away, Anakin and Ahsoka skid to a halt.

“You may take me to Count Dooku.”


	12. Chapter 12

This time, it was Ahsoka yanking Anakin into the nearest niche in the wall. Crowded together inside the dark recess, the glow of their weapons daubed grave shadows into their features.

 _“Master,”_ she castigated him quietly, “I _told_ you we should’ve gone back!” Anakin did not respond, instead tending to the dial adhered to his wrist, which he twisted and poked as he paid her no mind. Inspired, Ahsoka continued right on without him. “I’ve got an idea. I’ll scout ahead to make sure we’re not caught. If we can get back to the hangar without any trouble, we could still trace his steps and find out which way they took him. But we have to go now before they get too far away.” The hallway’s fluorescent lights poured over her skin as she leaned out to dash. “Are you ready?”

Finally Anakin spoke, though his gaze remained glued to the unit attached to his arm. “Hold on,” he refused bluntly, “Don’t move. It’s all part of the plan.”

But Ahsoka was _done_ with these unspoken schemes and the messes they caused. Emotions rising, she snapped back with a finger peeled off her hilt and pointing his way. _“Plan?_ Since when did we come up with a _plan?!_ When was there _ever_ a plan this entire mission?! Nuh-uh. No way. This time is different. This time, Master Kenobi is counting on us, and if we don’t get moving, he’ll be in Dooku’s hands for the rest of the war. And that’s if we’re _lucky.”_ Satisfied, she stepped forth to exit their safe hollow. She was jerked to a stop when Anakin’s hand closed around her wrist. Fortunately for him, he didn’t try to pull her back in.

“Look.” A simple command, and he raised his forearm to a height where she could easily view his comm link—which now flashed in a rhythmic green pulse at one point along the circular dial.

 _…A tracking beacon._ For once, Ahsoka felt that tacit, innate understanding her Masters had been hoarding to themselves until now. The irritation etched into her stance smoothed out to an air of resolve. This _was_ part of the plan, she now appreciated. Obi-Wan was leading them to their goal. He didn’t announce his surrender as a covert cry for help, he was broadcasting his destination so that his allies could follow. Dooku would most likely be at the Separatist Council meeting, which was scheduled to convene at the new weapon for demonstration. Ahsoka nodded back. This was risky— _too_ risky—but she had to admit it sounded much better than tiring themselves out running blind through the whole ship.

On the same page at last, they shuffled into the light. Anakin led at the front with an eye on his comm.

“They could’ve taken him to another level by now. We’ll have to watch out for— _Droids!”_

He felt the rifles loose before the droids could even lock on. Preconceiving their aim, Anakin pivoted on the spot and slashed away two flying bolts intent on piercing into his back. However, the sneak attack was only a prelude of the true assault to come. As soon as the deflected bolts met their marks at the sniper droids’ heads, the rest of the troop raced ahead with arms up and guns booming.

The opposition was insurmountable. With their pace reduced to a crawl, Anakin and Ahsoka stepped backwards as fast as the barrage would allow. Anakin’s lightsaber whirled in nimble, fluid motions, adapting his normally-inflexible form into one that enabled him to blend each swipe into the next. He threw bolts back at the droids whenever he could, but with the sheer, blinding volume of shots being cast, most of those precious opportunities went to waste. He could barely keep up fast enough to avoid being pocked full of holes. Nor was Ahsoka faring much better, glued to his side and swatting bolts for the both of them. Every time she managed to deflect a shot back and take down a droid, another one of equivalent caliber stepped up from behind. This strategy was _not_ sustainable.

Especially so, because in her most recent glance backwards, Ahsoka’s fears spiked tenfold at the sight of the fast-approaching hallway branching off to one side—which, of course, echoed with the unmistakable sound of a second wave marching in to flank them. _Not now,_ she dismayed. They were hardly staying alive defending against _one_ front. In any other setting, there might have been even a small amount of cover to use, and she would dive behind it to introduce an obstruction using the Force: rocks, crates, anything readily grabbable that would cut off the heat from one side, temporary though it might be. But here, the option was null and their position was compromised. So, stuck in a narrow corridor approaching a situation they’d unequivocally lose, there was only one thing left she could do.

She sensed the bolts flying her way, each and every one of them. It wasn’t as if she _couldn’t_ keep on deflecting, but with her next, careful step back, she chose not to. Instead, she outstretched an arm. Ahsoka squeezed her eyes shut, tightening her focus as hard as she could amidst heavy fire, and the Force barreled like a whirlwind into the first five ranks of droids. Their formation blew over like cards as a blaster bolt sheared her right shoulder.

Anakin heard her scream in the same instant he heard her lightsaber retract, clattering onto the ground. His robes fluttered with the speed at which he swerved in alarm. There were a million things he wanted to say, watching her grimace and clutch her new wound—which he _knew_ she was too skilled to receive on accident—but the incoming wave from the hallway at left wouldn’t give them the time. Clasping the shoulder she _hadn’t_ allowed to be shot, Anakin swung her around and shoved her ahead.

 _“Run! Now!”_ he commanded. And only after Ahsoka swallowed her pain and ran did he follow suit.

It was thus up to him alone to cover their escape. Running exactly behind her to occlude the droids’ aim, Anakin reached his arm back. The abandoned hilt flew into his grip. It burst to ignition the second it touched his fingertips, successfully slapping a bolt in the very same movement and sending it into the lights overhead. A cascade of sparks then gushed forth and rained over the droids on pursuit. At first, they weren’t terribly bothered. Their sensors remained locked and their quarry was unable to flee. They continued to advance through the flickering, sputtering section, but things became significantly more difficult while the Jedi before them made targets of _all_ the lights in the hall. Armed now with twice the deflecting ability, Anakin swatted bolts up, left and right until the last light was shattered and the hall was completely dark. Smoke and electricity wafted everywhere in a thick, meddlesome cloud. It wouldn’t stop the droids indefinitely, but if the decrease in blaster bolts was any indication, his plan was at least good enough to secure an escape.

Moving in relative freedom for the time being, Anakin took the opportunity to match pace beside his Padawan. “What is the _matter with you?!”_ he railed through his teeth. The Force thundered around him in great, conglomerate flashes of rage, worry, self-blame and protectiveness.

Ahsoka was in no state to respond. All she felt was pain. Each footfall sent jolts through her ruptured arm, which never quite moved the way she intended whenever she tried to manipulate it into some kind of position that might lessen the incredible shredding feeling percolating down the limb’s nerves. All of this only served to heighten Anakin’s concern. He couldn’t help staring at her in simmering distress, feeling woefully useless as she soldiered on with impressive pace for one who’d just bitten the metaphorical bullet and taken a hole in the arm. So distracted was he that Ahsoka’s good arm was needed to prevent him from tumbling into the next room.

Sprawling before them at end of the hall was a vast, open chamber perhaps half the total size of the monstrous ship. The threshold at their feet let out to the shortest of balconies, a mere meter of space to stand upon before the floor disappeared into an endless void filled with complex, fast-moving machines supporting the engine’s mammoth-sized nuclear reactors. Ahsoka looked down into the abyss, then back to the hall. _Dead end,_ she quickly surmised. While she peered about in wheezing breaths to locate a new place to jump, Anakin scrutinized the tiny control box he found wired into the wall.

“Master…?!” he heard her call warily. Turning to address her frightened tone, he caught sight of her craning upward, rotating apprehensively, gawking in horror at the tens of hundreds of commando droids outfitted with sniper rifles and poised at every tractable ledge along the engine pit.

 _Never mind Obi-Wan,_ Anakin despaired, _At this rate_ we’re _gonna need saving soon._ He punched in a three-button sequence, and the box on the wall emitted a soft, jovial _ding._ A prismatic bridge of light projected its way across the huge chasm. Distantly, he could make out the shape of a door on the other end. “All right. Let’s go!”

The bridge pulsated beneath their boots, hardening on impact and changing color according to weight. Long, high-pitched sniper bolts peppered their path as they ran. Anakin again took the lead on defense, sheltering Ahsoka’s smaller frame as she ran just in front of him, swiping and dodging as best he could without leaving his injured apprentice for long. The two made it about halfway across, when unexpectedly, the door parted from the other side and unleashed upon them the newest addition to this rapidly evolving swarm: innumerable rows of super battle droids filed in and marched onto the bridge with no hesitation. Wrists raised, a salvo of red surged in like a flood.

Anakin stopped, panic cresting and prompting him to shepherd Ahsoka back in the direction they came, but through the smoke on the other side emerged the previous throng of droids they’d already fled from without much success. His vision darted between either end—each closing in fast with no hope of escape. Persistent sniper fire from above gave him no chance to jump. Stranded in the middle, back to back with Ahsoka, they each swung wildly as the enemy suffocated them from all sides. That’s when he saw it: a vacant cooling vent stationed four stories up and into the wall. An opportunity to survive. He might have made the leap on his own, might have pulled Ahsoka up with him once he had the landing secured, but even a second of separation and she would surely be killed.

Next she knew, Ahsoka was hurled through the air and crammed indelicately inside the icy, metal passage. Her head swam with the abrupt and concussive force of the blast. Coupled with the extraordinary pain that the uncoordinated landing sent through her arm, she had only a few seconds of battered coherency before her vision blurred and finally went black.


	13. Chapter 13

Obi-Wan was brought before the Separatist Council with his lightsaber confiscated, surrounded by droids, hands bound behind his back. The meeting took place in a lofty sort of room, he discovered, high ceilings with buttresses and such, each of them culminating at the apex of the ceiling where sat the most overly-massive armored terrain vehicle Obi-Wan had ever laid eyes on. He had to angle his neck up to capture the full view. It towered over three stories high and sported twin cannons on either side, each of them more than wide enough to spew all the plasma needed to raze an entire town, and then some. _A tank, is it?_ _Doubtful the thing flies without any propulsion apparatus,_ he pondered blasely. As he stood there analyzing the craft, the umbral form of Count Dooku rose from his chair.

“What a pleasant surprise,” he remarked, cool as always with a smug air of triumph. The Council members on either side of the long, crescent-shaped table beheld a mixture of excitement and trepidation—but mostly trepidation. Whereas Dooku was chillingly confident in the presence of Jedi, his confidants felt exposed and afraid whenever Obi-Wan glanced in their direction.

“The pleasure is all mine, Count,” he managed to quip before the B2 at right gave his head a retaliatory _thump_.

Tactfully, Dooku raised a hand. There was no need to be rough. Not _yet,_ anyway. He strolled from the table at a languid pace with his cape trailing behind. “Imagine my surprise when I learned that our gathering was to be interrupted by an uninvited guest.” He paused when he reached the center, looming just before the droids, the onlookers, and their unimpressed prisoner. “The infamous _Obi-Wan Kenobi,_ no less.”

The table stirred in an elevated clamor. Neimoidians and Gossams alike murmured amongst themselves, though not one group could compete with the startled disarray of the Koorivars, who gasped and spurred their host into action.

“There must be some mistake!” he cried as he stood in a rush. “My Lord, this is the man I was speaking of earlier! This is Governor Dudon!”

Sheer delight painted Count Dooku’s face, at that. “Governor _Dudon,_ you say?” He inserted a moment of silence to appreciate the latest iteration of his adversary’s penchant for deception. Obi-Wan, however, appeared entertained by the grand reveal, more than anything.

“Oh _no,_ I’m afraid you’ve been deluded by another one of his traps,” Dooku continued, “This is none other than High General Kenobi, a formidable opponent in our struggle to overtake the Republic.” The words were delivered in a strange affect of flattery. It was almost as if he were complimenting Obi-Wan on a job well done.

Though, his meaning was inconsequential when the stage was stolen by another droid entourage flowing in from the double doors at the far end of the room. Walking there between them, with his hands restrained in a similar fashion, was a defeated—and very embarrassed—Anakin. All of the controlled amusement Obi-Wan displayed prior to this point evaporated into a chastising look of disappointment. His reproving glare followed Anakin the entire way to the table, where the droids finally bullied him into place beside his Master. Anakin decided then that the newly-waxed floors were positively fascinating.

“Ah, Skywalker,” Dooku commented with levity, “I had a feeling you would be joining us.”

While he went on to allay the Koorivars’ residual misgivings about the true identities of “Skimpo” and “Dudon,” Anakin felt a sharp pain in his arm where Obi-Wan stabbed in with his elbow.

“What in _blazes_ are you _doing here?!”_ he scolded discreetly.

Anakin shot back a look in defiance, first checking the B2 behind him for any sign of agitation. “Oh, I don’t know, just thought I’d walk in with my arms up—What do you _think_ happened?! I got _caught!”_

 _“Obviously._ But if I’d known you were going to flout your escape so _spectacularly_ I wouldn’t have made an opening for you in the first place.”

“Do you see Ahsoka here? _No!_ I know what I’m _doing,_ so you just be quiet and wait. She’ll break us out. Then we’ll head back to the Koorivars’ ship and everything will be fine.”

To that, Obi-Wan had no witty response. He paused there, thinking of a viable euphemism for the fact that their ship was now a fiery crisp, and in that very pause their argument was interrupted. Dooku turned back to meet them with predatory eyes.

“-That is why,” he finished his monologue, “As suitable punishment, these two shall be enlisted as test subjects for the demonstration of our new weapon’s potency.”

Said subjects looked at each other immediately. Their rescue was suddenly _much_ more imperative, and their hopes for Ahsoka correspondingly skyrocketed.

She was determined not to disappoint. Deep within the warship’s ventilation system, Ahsoka’s numb hands padded along as fast as she could make them go. Each time they pressed down against the icy surface of the cooling vents, it felt as though they’d become welded to the metal, peeling off some layers of skin when she next pried them off. The frigid air did nothing to improve the condition—to say nothing of the continued throbbing wracking her injured arm.

When she awoke, her skin prickled from the frost it accumulated while she was unconscious. She thrashed to a sitting position on instinct, smacked herself _hard_ against the vent walls, and finally regained some semblance of memory about where she was and why. Her second instinct was to locate Anakin. She pieced together that he’d thrown her to (relative) safety inside the vent, though she also distinctly remembered the dire situation they were in before she was lobbed across the room. Peering out into the reactor pit, however, showed nothing. No signs of droids, no ongoing battle, and most importantly, no dead Jedi. Whether the scene was encouraging or foreboding, she had no choice then but to turn on her comm’s tracking function and pick up the mission where it left off.

And if things weren’t so incredibly _painful_ inside this dim, arctic tunnel, she might have appreciated how free she was, no longer inhibited by probe droids and blaster fire. Turning the fifth corner thus far, she silently rejoiced upon hearing the faint notes of sentient voices somewhere below. Her frozen knees knocked against the shaft walls as she crawled toward the distant outlet panel. Thin rows of light filtered in from the other side. Her whole body was shivering by the time she reached the end, but she was too numb to tell.

Anakin had just finished stepping into place at the indicated firing range when his senses alerted him to the very _near_ presence of his Padawan. Glancing up and around the highest layer of rafters, he was overjoyed to pinpoint a dusty orange hand worming out through a grate. The hand fiddled clumsily with the exterior bolts: one, two… With the last bolt removed and the hand retracted, Anakin watched the panel drift apart from the wall. Ahsoka brought the piece into the vent beside her (not wanting to cause a disturbance) and poked her head out.

She seemed to survey the various points of interest for a short while before committing to a plan. The exorbitant tank was understandably the focal point in her observation, followed closely by the fact that the entire Separatist Council was congregated below in a sea of battle droids. …In front of her Masters, she was fastidious to note. Both of them had been herded against a wide, empty wall. A path had been vacated between them and the tank, and once she sighted them turning around on Dooku’s orders, the terrifying exigency of the situation became clear. She had to get to the tank, and _fast._


	14. Chapter 14

At precisely the moment Ahsoka’s feet dropped onto the hull of the tank, Anakin emitted the loudest, most obnoxious fake cough he could muster. It didn’t occlude the sound of her landing entirely, but it certainly detracted from what might have been a dead giveaway of her position. She scurried out of view as soon as she could—just in time to evade the Separatist Council’s attention as they busily donned their protective equipment and swerved around to investigate the noise.

The tank blared to life shortly thereafter. Its thrust nozzles burned a vibrant, incandescent green. It sounded like a turbine spinning up right next to Ahsoka’s ears, and by the time she located an entry hatch, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to hear properly again. The hatch swung open by assistance of the Force. The environment into which she descended was dark, muffled and narrow. Her fingertips crept along the smooth metal walls as she advanced, swiftly yet carefully, along the only path available to her, leading straight to the aperture of blue light shining in from the cockpit. Slowing her pace on approach, Ahsoka saw that the tank’s control room was on par with a mid-sized cruiser. Unlike other tanks with their single-occupancy command pits, the current monstrosity she was aboard was humming with the disjointed chorus of countless startup processes from several stations at once. The raucous cockpit was outfitted with just enough space for three operators: droids, in this case, as all three positions were busily occupied by B1s preparing the main cannons to fire.

In one dexterous leap, her single remaining lightsaber cleaved through all operators’ battery packs. The chairs were still smoldering when she plopped down at the nearest pilot station. Her left hand could type satisfactorily, she found, but her right merely trembled and twitched. _Come on, work!_ she internally begged the uncooperative limb. The cannons were already charging. If she didn’t find an override command soon, the pain in her arm would be nothing compared to what her Masters would feel on the receiving end of heavy artillery.

Waiting outside with comparable impatience, Anakin couldn’t have agreed more. He was more-or-less expecting their rescue would’ve happened by now. The saturated lime green of the cannons’ interior barrels was pouring over his and Obi-Wan’s backs, seconds away from full charge and subsequent release. Pending full-blown hysteria, he looked to his side for advice. But Obi-Wan was just as trapped as him. A brief, uncertain look was all he received before the charging noise stopped and the deafening thunder of launch overtook everything else. Ahsoka had failed. The great cannon fired, bleeding intense, green light over every crevice of the room, booming with enough ferocity to shake the entire ship.

However, the one thing Ahsoka _did_ manage to do was to aim the sights _up._ Overwhelmed by unfamiliar controls, she abandoned her attempt to shut the tank down. She instead gripped the gunner sticks at the very last second and tore back for all she was worth. The massive bolt of plasma thus fired on schedule, but missed its intended targets and impacted the back wall in a blustering, white-hot explosion.

Anakin felt the shock rattle through his bones. With his hearing all but obliterated, the only indication he had of his apparent survival was pain: the shockwave was painful, yes, but in addition to that, Anakin felt the blunt impact of battle droids crashing into his back as he was thrown from the blast. His constrained arms did nothing to soften the blow. As he rose, unwieldy and off-balance, he was afforded no time to recuperate. The B2s yet functioning were quick to take aim. The lesser cannons of the prototype tank were shooting at will, and the Separatist Council was fleeing in terror from the titanic beast bumbling ahead to mow them all over.

All except Dooku, to no one’s surprise, who immersed himself fully into the brewing fray. The downward strikes of his red saber jabbed in blinding succession. As the object of his frenzy, Obi-Wan could only concentrate on avoiding a lethal hit. He squirmed, stuck on his back without arms to aid him, pushing himself backwards at the same pace that Dooku closed in.

 _“Obi-Wan!”_ Anakin probably called. He couldn’t be sure, deaf as he was, but his intent was foiled anyway by the squad of four MagnaGuards who suddenly activated their electrostaves and stood to divide him from his Master. A series of eight thrusts swooped in _far_ too fast for any normal sentient to evade. Any one of them—even glancing blows—could incapacitate him for as much time as would be needed to deliver the kill. Luckily, Anakin was anything but normal. The exact pattern of attack flowed into his mind before the droids even moved. Only his agility could limit him here, and in that, Anakin excelled by leagues.

As he dodged, capitalizing on his speed to meet the challenge of four unerring droids and an onerous handicap, a blurred silhouette came into view diving down from on high. It started out small. It drew ever closer in a tight, rotating ball of sorts, and then from the somersault shape unfolded the strike-ready form of Obi-Wan. He plunged into the arm joint of the nearest MagnaGuard. The limb _crunched_ underneath him, detached, and spewed forth a flurry of sparks beneath his feet. The other droids bristled in shock. They dispersed a few steps from the site of ambush to recalculate their attacks. And if things weren’t so chaotic in the moment, Anakin might have laughed. Instead he found himself being nudged harshly in the shoulder, no time to waste, forced to turn by the insistence of Obi-Wan’s uncanny headbutting. And then his bindings were gone. The sweet sound of a lightsaber heralded the sound of his shackles clanging onto the ground.

“Took you long enough,” he said with a smirk, as the hilt was tossed to his hand. … _Obi-Wan’s_ hilt, he realized with a grimace. Not his favorite weapon to fight with, but it would have to do, because that brief maneuver was all the two were afforded before an indomitable wave crashed over them both, sending Anakin, Obi-Wan, and all four MagnaGuards sliding onto their backs. Dooku stalked through the wake of his destruction.

“I’ve had enough of your mischief,” he reviled sternly, “In return, your lives shall be payment as recompense for the damage you’ve caused to the Confederacy.”

Anakin flipped to his toes. Just like the rage in his eyes, his Master’s blade burned hot in his grip. But Obi-Wan was not so well-off. Unarmed and still bound, he was only able to watch as five spears of lightning arced from Dooku’s fingertips and pierced him dead on. A searing pain combed over his whole body. It clawed at the nerves running up his spine, culminating in the screams loosed from his lips. In response, Anakin moved without thinking. A surge of vengeance exploded in the Force and powered his launch toward Dooku’s neck.

His saber, oriented outward to stab with maximum reach, was suddenly met with the sacrificial durasteel of a MagnaGuard’s chest. It flew to its keeper’s aid with not a second to spare. It hung limp with a blade now embedded inside its power cell. Dooku glanced at the beam, casual and disinterested, as it hummed only inches away from his head. The MagnaGuard dropped when Anakin ripped through its side. Dooku answered with a renewed stance of his own.


	15. Chapter 15

The overwhelming strength behind Anakin’s blows could have carved through Count Dooku with ease. He wielded Obi-Wan’s blade with a fury unmatched and a speed insurmountable. The hangar tolled again and again with the rapidfire, echoing sounds of lightsaber collision as he chased his foe down, but Dooku, using his superior maneuverability, had no need to match power for power. The targeted placement of his own blade accepted each consecutive strike and cleanly redirected it out of harm’s way. Sheltered safely through his parrying mastery, Dooku grinned at the seeds of the dark side sprouting within the warrior advancing before him.

 _Does it ail you?_ He mused, watching the flames of anger fan themselves after every riposted blow, _To watch your beloved master squirm at my mercy?_ Anakin was relentless in his determination to see Dooku dead. _Yes, child, let your hatred fuel you._ What he would have given to possess such malice under his command. Ventress was skilled, to no one’s disagreement, but her hatred was ever tempered by a dangerous intelligence that Dooku feared would some day skew her path from darkness. Contrarily, Anakin was pure. His hate was a dominating force, the likes of which Dooku had never felt from anyone else. Of course, such purity came with the price of insurgency. Like a natural disaster, Anakin would never submit as a true dark apprentice, and so his only fate was to die on this ship. How dearly Dooku wished that Obi-Wan were to demonstrate such malevolence. The perfect disciple—if only the hands of the dark side could stretch out long enough to grab hold of him.

Instead, the baleful knight persisted. As Anakin kept Dooku at bay, Obi-Wan found footing at last amid the predatory circle of four threatening MagnaGuards. One of them lacked an arm, to make things marginally better, though little else served to aid him while he was forced to dodge their bombarding assault. His limbs felt heavy and weak. The total body shock that Dooku cast upon him was still alight in his skin. It slowed his movement and hindered his perception, but even with these impediments, Obi-Wan refused to yield. Furious, violet currents of electricity sliced above and below him as he eluded the droids’ computed aim. Where one swept a glaive through his midsection, another stabbed in from atop. They harmonized seamlessly as though operating within a shared mind. Prescience was all that Obi-Wan could rely on at this point, afforded to him through scattered concentration and the will of the Force.

Contorting himself at ninety degrees, he stole a glance up at an electrostaff streaking past his limited view. It swooped merely inches away from his nose, then out from its transient occlusion bloomed the fluorescent lights of the ceiling far overhead. _About time,_ he scoffed internally. The entryway to his tactic was set. Flipping himself high through the narrow, fleeting gap between the four staves, he vaulted onto the nearest droid’s shoulders, thereby garnering the others’ hostility. MagnaGuards were smart, to their well-deserved credit, but faced with an adversary of priority like this, they spared no misgivings about stabbing a sibling’s commandeered head. The droid thus went down in a hail of its fellows’ attacks. Lethal voltage coursed through its circuits and killed it outright. Precariously, Obi-Wan danced around the more accurate strikes aimed at his legs, but without use of his arms, he was unable to adequately defend in time to secure a safe landing. The betrayed machine fell, throwing its Jedi cargo roughly onto the duracrete floor. Obi-Wan had never missed having the use of his arms so badly. Looking up, he barely found time through his bruised and hazy bearings to scoot himself a couple meters aside before one gargantuan foot of the runaway tank—perhaps the size of a lesser tank in itself—came crashing down upon the two-and-a-half MagnaGuards who were poised to deliver the finishing blow. Their demise came all at once with an ear-splitting crackle of metal and a boom of electricity. Ahsoka’s sparsely controlled titan lumbered on after that, stomping its rampant way to smash through the damaged back wall.

As it did, Obi-Wan found that her work had inadvertently paved the way for the next threat in line: the B2s stationed along the room’s periphery were now able to fire without hindrance. They raised their stilted wrists and locked on immediately, no longer risking collision with an allied MagnaGuard. Obi-Wan rolled upright yet again, standing among the pooled remains of his adversaries, this time preparing to square off against a firing squad with a single target in mind. They wouldn’t wait for him to recover. So, taking this brief opportunity before the volley unleashed, he reached out to swipe another hilt from the corpse of a MagnaGuard who’d been squashed at his feet: Ahsoka’s hilt, he identified, as the piece flew into his yet constrained hands.

The ensuing torrent of blaster fire set the room ablaze with dazzling reds that reflected off every polished surface. Distracted, Anakin’s attention flicked away from his frenzied duel. He swerved in terror to watch his forsaken Master fend against an army without a lightsaber to shield him, and in that instant, Dooku seized the tide of the fight: Anakin’s right hand was gone. Like so many years ago, he felt the limb stutter to a grinding, inoperable halt, and everything went blank as the appendage clattered onto the ground, twitching and molten circuitry where Dooku sliced the wrist through. Except, this time, there was no pain. Only the shock, the flash of warning bleeding into the Force, the and the incoming lunge of a red beam to his chest.

Ahsoka’s timing couldn’t have been more prudent.

She, of course, knew nothing of the severity of the battle going on below her hulking vessel, but all the same she salvaged both her Masters’ lives a second time when she loosed the main cannon and destroyed the back wall. The room flooded with green. A blinding flash befell every nook and the entire ship lurched. Everyone and every _thing_ that wasn’t bolted or welded down was tossed in random directions, disrupting all formation and sucking the whole affair into the vastness of space. Her shot had not only pierced the wall as intended, but the immense mortar blasted on through the next wall behind it and carved a shriveling hole into the void just beyond.

The sound was that of a hurricane whaling against a shallow alcove. Shreds of droid, table and chair somersaulted over the expanse like tumbleweeds on their expedited way to the vacuum outside. Anakin was beyond battered by now, his missing hand notwithstanding, and flopped to awareness via the screaming B1 toppling over his side. He could have sworn he was dead. With his last memory being imminent doom at the hands of the enemy, the blackout pain fit quite well into that narrative. But against expectation, he stumbled from his back to his knees, and felt himself very alive. So much alive, in fact, that he was privy to the current situation wherein Dooku was no longer a threat.

Rather than succumb to the vortex, Dooku finally followed the example of his Council and fled to his private cruiser. Finishing off an _apprentice,_ as he still viewed Anakin’s role, was not worth dying for. The secret weapon was compromised. Here was the end to this budding plan, but there would be future endeavors—ones that would not be as susceptible to whichever intricate spy network Dooku was sure the Republic had used to track his rendezvous out in the middle of nowhere.

Anakin tried to give chase, but failed to push himself from the ground. Hands were good for that sort of thing, he noted with embarrassment. The adamant voice of Obi-Wan also cut short his pursuit, shouting overtop of the bustling commotion. There across the way he slid uncontrollably into the following room. The intense vacuum pulled him head-first. Through the flaming gap in the wall he went, beckoning Anakin’s help, utterly incapable of preventing himself from sliding into oblivion. With a sigh, Anakin jogged to the rescue.


	16. Chapter 16

It was no simple feat running a straight line while all the air in the room was funneling out into space. Piling that ordeal onto to the periodic encumbrance of a droid or other sharp chunk of metal barreling its way toward the colossal hole in the wall, and Anakin was moving like some rickety puppet without half its strings. Obi-Wan did his part as well to stem his impending death through the continuous slipping and scraping of his boots on the floor, but once his student drew near enough, the bulk of his effort was promptly shunted toward twisting in whichever way would afford him a better look at the suspicious _absence_ of said student’s right hand. Suddenly, his own peril was irrelevant.

“Wait. Is that—? Have you—? Wait just a moment now, Anakin. _Not. Another. Step._ Turn here now,” he commanded, inept and unwieldy as he prioritized visual confirmation of the most atrocious offense he’d seen in some time.

With great intention, Anakin reexamined his footing and ignored every word.

“Don’t you ignore me, what in the _galaxy_ have you done with your _arm?!”_

No response.

 _“Truly_ you don’t mean to tell me you’ve lost it _again_ _?!_ _Anakin_ I swear—” he scoffed in patent disbelief, “And to the _very same person_ you’d forfeited it to _last time?_ Have you learned nothing?!”

Anakin had half a mind to shove his old teacher another few meters closer to his doom. It wasn’t as though the man could really _do_ anything about it, after all, and _Force_ how delicious it would be to watch him clam up and writhe. But, for as tempting as the scheme was, Anakin’s judgement was benevolent that day.

Meanwhile, caught in her own fast-moving conundrum, Ahsoka managed to open the rear access hatch. Angelic rays of light poured into the tumultuous room from the back of the tank, where smaller tanks were already loaded inside. Of course, “smaller,” in this case, was more “regular-sized.” The descending runway yawned wider and wider until it finally touched ground and scraped with a shrill and continuous scream. There was no stopping her behemoth’s path to the void, whether she tried to or not, so the best she could do was let the others on board. She had to trust that they’d know what to do.

And Anakin was grateful for her quick thinking, given that the tremendous noise cancelled out a good deal of Obi-Wan’s incessant lecturing. Upon reaching him, Anakin’s foremost task was to drag him aboard. The large access hatch was still a few paces away, however, and so he spent the excess seconds drawing his severed right hand into his still-intact left. The prosthetic had apparently powered down while it was clasped around Obi-Wan’s lightsaber; thankfully, the hilt remained in its grip.

“I’ll have you know I am very disappointed in you, Anakin,” he might have heard from the sour-faced detainee below. Anakin rolled his eyes. As suitable retaliation, the whole package was chucked carelessly into the tank, lightsaber and all. A barrage of aggravated complaints spouted forth to upbraid him. Something about delicate machinery and lack of circumspection, Anakin guessed, though it was the offended _tone_ he was after from the get-go. There was no way to fix this mistake. Might as well get a rise out of it while he could. And to polish off the insult, Anakin pulled forth his own lightsaber as he spotted it rolling over the floor. He dusted a bit of imaginary grime from its smooth, silvery channels, then clipped it safely onto his belt. As intended, the Force _reeked_ of antagonism. Satisfied, he then worked to shuffle onto the unsteady runway with Obi-Wan’s collar bunched up in his fist.

“Stop— _Ow!”_

 _…Ow?_ Tugging his livid Master the final stretch of the way onto the runway proper, Anakin peeked down with curiosity. As it turned out, his previous efforts _not_ to look Obi-Wan in the eye had successfully prevented him from gaining an accurate view of the myriad blaster burns marring his once-beige robes. It seemed that his run with the firing squad had not been so flawless as he might have liked.

“Whoa, hey!” Anakin belatedly addressed him with all petty scorn shoved aside, “Are you okay?!”

The runway started to rise underneath them.

“Am _I_ okay?!” What once was a grimace now swiftly transformed back into that same, heated look of reproach. “I find it remarkable that you’ve interest in asking as much while _you’re_ the one whose _arm_ has been lopped off!” A non-answer as any, but at the very least he wasn’t in enough pain to stop nagging.

“Kriffing _hell,_ Obi-Wan! Shut _up_ about it already!”

“I absolutely will _not,_ seeing as that very well could’ve been your _other_ arm! Or worse! Honestly, what were you _thinking?!_ Must I train you a second time?!”

In the end, the two never did return to the topic of Obi-Wan’s wounds. They soon made their way to the massive tank’s bridge, angry enough to stave off their pain, bickering constantly with every step. (Or every pace _dragged,_ in Obi-Wan’s case. The unspoken agreement remained that Anakin would still pull him, despite any ongoing animosity.)

Outside her choice, Ahsoka’s makeshift space craft had just entered zero gravity when the rear access hatch closed and both Jedi came slogging into the control area. Her chair swiveled over to greet them. She was planning a modestly jovial reception to combat the telltale, muffled insults she heard being thrown back and forth on their way to the bridge, but what she saw now before her dashed that idea clean off the table: a shackled, blaster hole-ridden Obi-Wan came into view being dragged like a corpse by one beaten, bedraggled, and _one-handed_ Anakin. Understandably, she screamed.

 _“What?! What happened?!”_ came Anakin’s startled response. He dropped Obi-Wan’s collar at once and reached for his lightsaber—which remained uncoerced by his nonexistent right hand. A pitiful _oof!_ resounded beneath him.

“Your- Your hand! Master!” she called out in shock, fingers over her mouth, “Oh no. I’m so sorry…!”

Partway through kneeling down to re-gather Obi-Wan, Anakin regarded her with confusion. “It’s fine, Snips, don’t make such a big deal out of it. Had me worried there for a minute.”

Now it was _her_ turn to be confused.

“Are you _serious?!”_ Seeking support, she entreated Obi-Wan with an incredulous, supremely worried expression. Yet, he too was unexpectedly composed. “Master, how can you not— That’s your _hand!”_

At last, after a brief measure of consideration, the situation dawned on Obi-Wan first.

“Anakin,” he inquired, “Could it be the case you’ve never mentioned to her our very first run-in with the Count?”

“I don’t know, maybe.” Ascertaining the severity of a blotchy, cauterized hole in Obi-Wan’s leg seemed far more pressing than re-hashing old history. “Is that really important right now?”

Right as an explanation was about to be launched, however, the warship from which they were steadily drifting crunched in on itself, unable to withstand the pressure differential. Its dense metal hull was little more than a thin foil sheet against the all-encompassing vacuum of space. Millions of transparisteel viewports burst from the ship all at once as though fired off by a shotgun. The impressive, columnar shape then buckled at its midsection, keening over in spite of its girth, and finally erupted in a cataclysmic upsurge the size of a small moon. Wreathes of blue plasma lashed out from the site. Debris was expelled like a downpour of comets. Flames rolled out as far as the scattered oxygen would spread, then dissipated on their own, leaving an unstoppable shockwave in their wake. The prototype tank was flimsy by comparison.

First, its power shut off. The electromagnetic pulse emitted from the warship’s totaled reactors washed over the tank without resistance and shorted every last board. The debris hit them not a minute later. One solid hit to the cupola sent the tank spiraling out of control, all passengers aboard tumbling head-first into the cockpit controls. The second hit interrupted the first, this time impacting the broadside main cannon, which threw everyone back from the control boards and into the side wall. The tank had finally settled into a regular rotation pattern when the shockwave then came, last but not least, propelling them faster and farther into the galaxy than this machine was ever designed to go.

The inside of the tank was naught but grunting and seething, bones crunching and limbs flailing for purchase the entire way through. For what seemed like hours, the three Jedi were sure they’d be killed by a Separatist weapon in the most unorthodox, unimpressive way possible. But with the power gone and the tank out in space, a small blessing of mercy brought them back from defeat: the gravity simulators were off. The terrible, washing machine-like nightmare dissolved at last, albeit slower than any of them would have preferred. Ahsoka finally drifted away from the gunner’s chair she’d been clinging to with passing success. The floor bunted Anakin into the same area at the cockpit’s center. Obi-Wan was dislodged from the crevice between the viewport and the control boards, and in a rush of relief, the bludgeoning stopped. Sources unknown, tiny droplets of blood drifted here and there about the cabin.

“…All right,” grumbled Obi-Wan, cracking his jaw, “I’d say that about constitutes the extent I’m willing to go on this mission.”

The tank was still swirling around them.

“Yep, I’m calling it quits.” Weakly, Ahsoka clutched her half-functional arm at the shoulder where she was shot.

“…I think I broke a tooth,” added Anakin.

As they collectively suffered by testing out which parts of their bodies weren’t too broken to use, the engines stuttered back into life. The tank didn’t have stabilizers—unprepared as tanks typically are for eccentric endeavors such as space travel—so while the continuously rotating cabin was a feature here to stay, a number of more comforting features returned. Air, pressure, then lights… And gravity. The bleaching LEDs revealed everyone’s shared expressions of dread as the renewed sensation of weight coalesced around them.

Ahsoka paddled off to strap into her commander’s chair with a flaring rage tempered by miserable agony. _“Come_ on, I said I quit already!” she railed into the Force.

“There’s gotta be some way to get this to stop,” mused Anakin. He grabbed the ceiling hatch handle with all the dregs of strength he could push into his left arm.

That only left Obi-Wan, who sank toward the whirling sidewalls of doom with no way to stop himself. “I appreciate your optimism, I really do, but for the time being would you consider lending a hand? I’m a bit _tied up_ at the moment!”

A wicked grin bloomed over Anakin’s scratched face. He looked down and watched him sink with malice. “Aw gee, Master, you know I _would,_ but I’m a little short on hands right now.” He shrugged with his stubby right arm on blatant display.

“For _all_ the— Will you two stop for _one second?!”_

The blink and beep of a large green light on the dash prevented the debate from blowing up all over again. While Ahsoka struggled between keeping her own position steady and reeling Obi-Wan in, Anakin climbed his way over in the stilted fashion of a dismembered spider. Even halfway beaten to death, he knew a comm beacon when he saw one. Flipping the most likely switch to be the comm link control, he silently prayed it wouldn’t be Dooku who answered, doubtless to mock them from inside his luxurious, stabilized cruiser.

Uncharacteristically, his prayers were answered by the welcome voice of Mace Windu.

“This is the Jedi Cruiser _Fortitude_ , requesting contact with beacon identification number four, eight, one, six, eight, three, seven, two, two. Do you copy?”

“That’s Master Windu!” Ahsoka exclaimed, swinging her head back too quickly for her poor, whiplashed neck.

“Loud and clear, Master,” answered Anakin. He’d never been so happy to hear that voice in his entire life. Looking back, he congratulated himself on his foresight: the encrypted SOS signal he sent to the Temple from the Koorivars’ ship had come to good use, after all. Chalking up another point he could use during the upcoming tounge-lashing he expected from Obi-Wan, Anakin pressed the comm button and appended, “Mind giving us a ride home?”

A pause.

And then, “General Skywalker, confirm location. This isn’t the beacon we received your transmission from.”

 _Oh boy, let’s give this a shot._ “Uh, right. Well, would you believe me if I told you we’re in a Separatist tank right now? Uh- But we _are_ in space, and the tank looks more like the back of a freighter. It’s big, I can tell you that. Look for the giant land vehicle spinning out of control.”

“Uh… Huh.”

Anakin couldn’t have agreed with him more. “It’s… Yeah. It’s a long story.”

Looking out the star destroyer’s viewport at the blistering remains of the Separatist warship, Mace could believe it.


End file.
